


these things take time

by sonhoedesrazao



Series: these things take time [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety Attacks, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Slow Build, Withdrawal, also waffles, honestly this won't get explicit for a long time, idiots pining for each other, like the slowest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-21 01:46:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 63,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonhoedesrazao/pseuds/sonhoedesrazao
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s always wary of making assumptions; even more so when Grantaire is concerned. He knows he’s not the easiest person to deal with. People either like him or can’t stand him, and it’s easy to respond to those reactions, but Grantaire—Grantaire is hostile and mocking, Grantaire scorns his beliefs, and Grantaire stays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授翻】These Things Take Time/假以时日](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5803438) by [ikerestrella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikerestrella/pseuds/ikerestrella)



> Hello! This is the first fic I write in a really long time, and tbh it's terribly self-indulgent, so I'm just going to leave this here before I lose my nerve. Please let me know if you find any horrible mistakes! 
> 
> A million thanks to the lovely [Minou](http://pantsaretherealheroes.tumblr.com), who had the questionable pleasure of reading the entire first draft of this. Without her encouragement and suggestions, I wouldn't be posting it.
> 
> My love also to [Trick](http://trickztr.tumblr.com), who's not even in the Les Mis fandom but is going to read this. Now _that's_ friendship.

“I’m in love,” Courfeyrac announces, letting himself in. “And someone stole my waffles!”

The door closes shut behind him, rattling the living room table. Enjolras raises his eyes from his laptop, right hand still typing a sentence while the left stops midair holding a coffee mug. The couch-bed is open to contain five open books and dozens of individual sheets of paper referring to a different paper, which he’ll get to—eventually. He’s wearing a shirt he’s had on for days, and the apartment hasn’t been cleaned for longer.

Courfeyrac has his arms crossed and is looking at him expectantly.

He loves his friends more than anything, but he’s woken up with a headache already in place and he’s not even halfway through his readings. There’s an official ABC meeting today he doesn’t want to cancel, and with the unpleasant buzz of too much caffeine in his blood, he’s in a foul mood.  

“Go away,” he says.

“Go away!” repeats Courfeyrac. “I come here bearing my soul and the man says _go away_!”

“I’m sorry, how rude of me,” he says dryly. “Are you all right?”

“I have no waffles and I’m _in love_!”

“No one stole your goddamn waffles,” Enjolras snaps. “You probably ate them after we left, or Bahorel fried them, or Bossuet poured them into whatever he was mixing in your kitchen.”

Courfeyrac rolls his eyes. “Admittedly, that wasn’t the main problem I came to discuss, Enjolras.”

There’s a throbbing in his temples. “Did I mention I have a lot of work to do, which you kept me from with your little impromptu party last night? Don’t _you_ have anything to do?”

“Did you hear nothing I said yesterday?” Courfeyrac scowls.

Enjolras shrugs. He was distracted by everything he still had—has—to do, having gone to Courfeyrac and Marius’s just to keep the former from sending any more messages, and had zoned out when Courfeyrac started describing one of his exam performances. Apparently his Shakespeare made the professor cry; someone had raised the question of whether it had been a good thing.

“So you’re done with the term,” Enjolras says.

He envies him, and everyone else who’s free to enjoy springtime in Paris, or a quiet lunch, or their beds, with petty determination.

“As a bird,” Courfeyrac chirps. “So I’m free to pursue the noble purposes of social justice _and_ delve into the deep abysses of my soul, in order to find the real me.”

He glares. “Go find the real you somewhere far away from me.”

Courfeyrac is the picture of injured dignity. “There’s this thing called Emotional Intelligence, you know. You should Google it.”

He’s about to give a scathing reply when the door to Combeferre’s room opens, and Courfeyrac makes a sound in the back of his throat like he’s just swallowed something unexpected.

“What are you _doing_ here?”

Combeferre raises an eyebrow. Enjolras assumes he’s too shocked by what appears to be a trick question, so he answers it himself.

“He _lives_ here.”

“Jehan said you had an internship interview,” Courfeyrac says.

“They changed the day.” Combeferre pushes his glasses up. “When did you speak to Jehan?”

“Just now.”

“Is that when you realized you were _in love_?” Enjolras mocks.

Courfeyrac swivels so fast he’s surprised the sheets over the table don’t flap. He shoots Enjolras a wild, wide-eyed look, like he’s trying to silently impart something vitally important; his hands are raised, frozen in an aborted gesture.

Enjolras frowns.

“You’re in love?” Combeferre asks thinly.

Courfeyrac turns to him, grabbing the lower half of his face and stroking an imaginary beard. “Y- _es_ ,” he says, as if deciding the answer halfway through the word.

No one speaks for a moment, and Enjolras clears his throat. “Also, one of us is apparently a thief.”

Combeferre making a humming noise. “Have you… just come to this realization?”

“About the thieving or—”

Enjolras snarls.

“—love, right. Yes.”

“While you were talking to Jehan?” Combeferre asks.

Courfeyrac scrunches up his face. “Yes?” he says, like a question, then more firmly, “Yes! I was talking to Jehan and I realized I’m in love.”

Enjolras doesn’t know what’s happening or why everyone sounds so strained, but whatever he was writing before has fled to unknown recesses of his mind, so he sits back with a sigh.

“Well?” he asks. “Are you giving details or are we playing 20 questions?”

“You’re snappy today,” Courfeyrac says, a sharp edge to his voice. “Ferre, tell him he’s snappy today.”

“End of the term,” Combeferre says distractedly. “Have you told him?”

“Told who?”

“Jehan.”

“Told Jehan what?”

Combeferre pushes the bridge of his glasses up. He’s got the weary look of someone who pulled an all-nighter, which is precisely what he’s done. Enjolras knows the feeling.

“That you’re in love with him,” Combeferre clarifies.

“ _Ah_ ,” Courfeyrac breathes out, stretching the syllable. His mouth remains ajar. “Right. Um, no?” He crosses his arms. “What if—he doesn’t like me back?”

“You’ll know when you get rejected,” Enjolras says cheerfully.

There’s a murderous glint in Courfeyrac eyes. The next moment, he grabs the mug from Enjolras’s hand and downs it.

“What were you hoping to accomplish?” Enjolras asks as he watches Courfeyrac splutter, supposedly choking to death.

“Getting rid of— _Jesus_ —of all your caffeine.”

He snorts. “You think I’d ever risk running out of caffeine? Amateur.”

“I think you don’t appreciate my plight,” Courfeyrac mutters. “Do you know what it’s like, Enjolras? To look at a friend of yours and suddenly realize he’s the _love of your life_?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking when I came to _you_ with this,” he huffs, and starts pacing across their living room, flicking his eyes towards Combeferre every now and then.

Enjolras scowls, ignoring a familiar, uncomfortable hurt settling in his stomach. Courfeyrac is teasing, but at some level, Enjolras thinks, he probably means it. It’s a recurring joke, the fact he’s not the most socially apt person of their group; and though he knows his friends love him, he still regrets the times he loses his temper or does something none of the others would have.

You’ll never see Combeferre lose his patience, he thinks, chastised. He wonders if Courfeyrac really is in love, if he’s a bad friend for not realizing, if being—well, _him_ —is going to drive them away one day.

“Are you going to tell him?” Combeferre is saying.

Courfeyrac stops, runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he says. “This is all so new.”

“How can you have no idea you’re in love with someone?” Enjolras blurts out, frustrated.

He doesn’t get how this works, doesn’t think he ever will. Doesn’t think he’ll ever notice when it happens, either. He only knows Marius is in love because he won’t shut up about it since first setting eyes on Cosette; he didn’t know about Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta until he saw all three of them together. And now Courfeyrac and Jehan? It’s not that he’s disinterested; it’s just that he’s not a great observer of people. He tries telling himself is not a big deal, even when it seems, sometimes, like everyone is having a conversation he’s not part of.

“It’s surprisingly easy to confuse with something else,” Courfeyrac says, voice a high-pitched whine. “I need help,” he moans.

“Maybe you should ask people who have successfully guaranteed they won’t die surrounded by cats,” Combeferre suggests, and Enjolras vaguely considers asking if that’s why he refuses to have one.

(Enjolras _likes_ cats; despite Courfeyrac saying he might want to wait a little longer before putting that particular nail in the coffin that is his love life.)

Courfeyrac is nodding slowly. “Yes, _those_ people. We know some of them.” He scratches his head. “Will they know what romance is, though? Joly and Bossuet are terrible, they were always an old married couple. They didn’t even have to _do_ anything to convince Chetta they’re worth her time. And _please_ don’t suggest Marius, those two are the worst, love at first sight and all that crap. What I need is _romance_ , damn it!” He thinks for a moment. “Maybe I’ll just ask R.”

Enjolras scoffs. “Why would you ask _Grantaire_?”

Courfeyrac looks up as if he’s just witnessed him run over a small child with a truck. “I just _can’t_ with you today.”

“Can’t what?” Enjolras asks, and is ignored.

Combeferre doesn’t respond to whatever the hell just happened. “You can brainstorm at the meeting tonight,” he tells Courfeyrac.

Enjolras is astounded that Courfeyrac gets the hint. In fact, he looks almost eager to leave—which makes no sense, since he was the one to come in the first place, but he’s too tired to dwell on it.

“Great idea, I will. Thanks, Ferre.” He stops with a hand on the door. “Enjolras—always a pleasure.”

Enjolras returns to his paper with a throbbing head and some indistinct unease prickling at him. Combeferre goes back inside and Enjolras doesn’t see him for the rest of the day.

*

Enjolras is in a horrible mood, he can tell right away. It shouldn’t quicken his pulse, Grantaire thinks, seeing him stride into the meeting frowning and serious, quiet in that focused way of his that is louder than words. As soon as he does, there’s a shift in the backroom of the Musain—a hush that falls over the others; a nauseating happiness that is kindled inside him.

Granted, the silence doesn’t last. Greetings erupt, and then conversation sparks up again. Combeferre’s having a talk with Joly; Bossuet, Feuilly and Bahorel are loudly relating something around him, in a conversation he’s supposed to be part of; Marius is excitedly expounding something to a disgruntled Éponine, standing in one corner; and Jehan and Courfeyrac stand whispering in another, the latter glancing backwards every now and then. Enjolras looks over his friends and sits at his usual place. Grantaire tracks his movements with an experienced eye.

“Can we start?” Enjolras asks.

It takes another half minute or so, but eventually they are all looking at him. The beginning of meetings is always Grantaire’s favorite part of the night: he’s still buzzed from boxing with Bahorel, already on his way to, but not entirely drunk, and part of him hopes against all previous evidence that he might get something from Enjolras that is not scorn.

It doesn’t last long, but the possibility is enough to keep him going.

“We can start by discussing which of you fuckers pilfered my waffles.”

“Courf,” Enjolras groans, then closes his eyes and throws his head back.

Grantaire stares. Longing wraps around his veins, like constricting vines sticking thorns into him. He takes a long gulp of his beer—he started drinking at home, and the mix of different kinds of alcohol is settling uncomfortably in his stomach—and watches blatantly, uncaring. Until meeting Enjolras, he’d thought saying your heart skipped a beat was just an expression.

A chorus of denials is drowning out Enjolras’s voice, until Bahorel cuts through them.

“He’s trying to set us against each other,” he bellows. 

“Don’t turn this against _me_ , where were _you_ at one thirty last night?”

“On the stove,” pipes in Bossuet, “heating something questionable, if I remember correctly.”

“I’m surprised you can remember anything,” says Bahorel. “Weren’t you trying to prove you could mix vodka with anything and it’d taste the same?”

“The experiment was a success,” Bossuet replies. “I think. Can’t remember exactly. R?”

Eyes turn to him, and—this too is an experienced movement—he quickly transfers his from where they were focused to face his friends.

“We came to the conclusion vodka is a silly drink, and we’d no longer waste our time with it, as we’re past the age of twelve,” he says. “But I think stealing Courf’s stash for science makes you suspect number one, doesn’t it?”

A choir of _oohs_ and _ahs_ comes from all corners of the room, and he takes advantage of the distraction to look at Enjolras again. He looks worried, as always. There are lines in his forehead, and Grantaire wants to smooth them. While the chatter surrounds him, he lets his mind wander to all the ways he could try to accomplish that.

“Can we _please_ focus?” Enjolras says above the din.

Grantaire hears himself speak. “You’re late. I almost feared we wouldn’t be blessed with your presence today.”

“It’s the end of the term,” Enjolras says in a clipped tone. “I’m busy. We all are.”

He doesn’t say _except you_ , but Grantaire hears it all the same. Which is unfair, a small part of him whispers, because it’s not like Enjolras knows anything about his life.

“Actually, I’m done with work,” Courfeyrac is saying.

“Yeah, I’m finished too,” Marius adds.

“I’m not even sure which classes I’m taking,” says Bahorel.

“R handed in his final project today,” Feuilly informs.

“Really?” Éponine asks, plopping down beside him. “What was it?”

“An _homage_ ,” Feuilly answers, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Grantaire is going to smother him with his own pillow tonight.

“Well, that explains everything,” Éponine rolls her eyes, then elbows him. “So?”

He tries to glare at both of them without letting anyone else see what he’s doing. “Nothing important,” he says through gritted teeth.

Funnily enough, it is Enjolras that saves him from further prying. “Fine!” he shouts. “Since you’re all so relaxed, can we start the meeting? I have a rally in mind.”

Rallies are Enjolras’s idea of a good time; to Grantaire’s astonishment, his friends seem to agree. To be fair, he never understood where all their revolutionary fervor came from, being the last addition to the group—brought in by Bahorel, taken in by the rest—, but the first time he saw them, they were already formed into this kind of social justice brigade, organizing protests in campus, Facebooking their way to a better tomorrow.

He doesn’t mean to question their efforts, but after getting into a fight with Enjolras about fifteen minutes into the first meeting he attended, his views were made clear. None of them cares he doesn’t subscribe to their brand of activism, for which he loves them—and it’s not as if Grantaire wants them to fail (the opposite, in fact), it’s just that he doesn’t know how to look around him and be optimistic.

And yet, he loves how one word from Enjolras has them all focused. They believe in this. He loves to watch Courfeyrac start expounding ideas; to see Combeferre make those ideas feasible; to laugh as Bahorel plans how to thwart campus police; to see even Éponine chime in, quieter in her enthusiasm, but just as passionate as the rest of them.

(Of course, that’s a lie. He _listens_ to his friends, but what he watches, always, is Enjolras, an untouchable fire lighting him up from the inside. He watches as Enjolras’s frowns smooth after hearing the others speak, and thinks, this is how you do that. This is why I can’t.)

Today, Grantaire can tell from the stiffness of his posture that he’s about to present a new idea, and is preparing to defend any opposition to it. The fact true opposition only comes from _him_ means Enjolras, at some level, thinks about Grantaire, and it’s such a pathetic scrap of attention he should be ashamed of flinging himself after it.

“About three months from now,” Enjolras says, “it’ll be a year since the death of Mabeuf.”

Everyone is instantly alert. Mabeuf was a student killed in a series of unplanned protests that sprang up around the city the year before. Enjolras had been ecstatic, almost frenzied, believing they would turn into country-wide actions that would prompt major government changes. Grantaire remembers the time fondly; they had some of their worst arguments during the three weeks of unrest—the worst ever, perhaps, when police repression brought about the unsolved murder of one of the protesters.

“I think we need to bring this back to the fore,” Enjolras is saying now, “remind people no one was ever convicted for the crime, which is precisely the kind of thing they were fighting ag— _what_?”

The last question is directed at him.

“I didn’t say anything,” he protests.

“You just snorted in the middle of my sentence,” Enjolras says.

Irritation accumulated over time has turned into helpless fury. Enjolras immediately looks at him as if expects Grantaire to say something biting—as if he sees no way to escape hearing him say it. The gleam in his eyes turns into something sharp and defensive, and he’s digging his fingers into the table as if to hold himself back.

He is stunning. Grantaire would fall to his knees, beg forgiveness, crawl on the floor; there is nothing he wouldn’t do, if Enjolras said the word. If there was ever pride in him, it was crushed when he sets eyes on this man.

He needs to make it last, this focus. He can’t make Enjolras smile with talk of hope, but he’ll take scraps of his passion, in whatever form they may come. Pathetic, he thinks, but he’s long made peace with that.

“I’m just wondering,” he says slowly, leaning over the table, “why do you think anyone will give a shit. No one even remembers Mabeuf’s name outside this room, and in here only because you ranted about it for a month after he died.”

“That’s precisely _why_ we should do this,” Enjolras answers in a carefully controlled tone. “Because people like him shouldn’t be forgotten. Because if we remind the people—”

“Then they’ll always exist in history, or in our hearts?” Grantaire scoffs; drinks some more. “Are you going to do this every year?”

“Maybe I will,” Enjolras counters angrily.

“No you won’t,” he sneers, “because no one will care. This time, you might get some people, I’ll grant you that, but soon there’ll be another news cycle, and more people killed, and then what are you going to do? Have a rally every day for someone unjustly murdered? So some more people can get murdered when it goes south?”

“So you think we should just forget anything ever happened? Just let it slide that a twenty-four-year old was murdered by Parisian police—”

“You don’t even have proof,” Grantaire says, and Enjolras eyes _blaze_ , the argument an old one.

Grantaire knows, of course, that the poor bastard was probably beaten to death after attacking a policeman, but it’s worth it to see the last strands of self-control slip from Enjolras.

“I’m _not_ going to get into that again, and I’m sick and tired of having the same arguments every time,” Enjolras says sharply. “This is hardly news, Grantaire—this is how you feel about _every_ rally, about everything we do. Nothing is a good enough cause for you, because you don’t think anything can be changed.”

“And you’ve never proven me wrong,” he says.

Enjolras breathes out in frustration. “In less than three years our rallies have grown from a few dozen people to almost ten thousand. People are coming together, realizing they have a _voice_ , and you still think it doesn’t mean anything?”

“That’s all very well,” he says, “but what have your rallies actually accomplished? Yeah, ten thousand people marching against homophobia, fantastic. Tell me, how much have the murder statistics dropped? How did those ten thousand people marching change a goddamn thing in _real life_?”

“So it’s better to sit back and not even acknowledge the problem? Because that will accomplish—oh, that’s right, _nothing_!”

Enjolras is enunciating the words clearly now, taut as violin strings. Grantaire is the bow that snaps them, drawing nothing but a broken sound from something that can make the most remarkable music.

“Why would I want to accomplish anything?” he asks. “It’ll all come back to where it started, one way or another. Things always do.”

Life is not a straight line, he wants to explain, but at the same time he doesn’t want them to know. He doesn’t want them to feel like him, but hates when reality dashes their hopes; hates when Enjolras fails, that moment when things fall short of his expectations and he looks so terribly frustrated, only to start all over again.

Enjolras heaves with exasperation. “Spare me your cynicism, Grantaire.”

But I can’t, he thinks. Come on, Apollo, don’t take this away from me too.

(Apollo—he never uses the name out loud, not since the first and only time, almost two years ago, drunkenly babbled in the middle of a rant to Éponine and Bahorel, the traitors. _First time I saw him was on a rally_ , he vaguely remembers saying, _he looked like a god, like a fucking statue—like the fucking Belvedere, I swear—so fucking beautiful_. They’d laughed. He’s not sure who told who, but the others found out; some time later, Courfeyrac added Enjolras’s number on his phone with the nickname. They used to tease him about it a lot. He never thinks about why they stopped.)

There’s a hand on his forearm—Éponine, tracing soothing circles in his skin. Feuilly is tense beside him, and Jehan is biting his fingernails. Silence has fallen heavily over the room.

This is all he ever seems to offer them.

“Anything for you,” he tells Enjolras hoarsely, raising his bottle in a quiet toast.

Enjolras turns away, and Grantaire resigns himself to watching.

*

Marius has a date, Feuilly has a late shift at one of his two jobs, and Combeferre still has work to do, the only one besides him who isn’t done for the term. The others disperse after that, taking with them the tasks Enjolras has given them. Éponine, Bahorel and Jehan take turns sitting beside Grantaire, for whatever reason, then leave; not that Enjolras is paying attention. He still has some things to go through with Courfeyrac, who’s remarkably focused now. Enjolras might be passionate, but Courfeyrac’s excitement is contagious. He forgets, sometimes, how much he appreciates his friend.

“—so we’re going to need to promote this,” says Courfeyrac at last.

Enjolras nods, dead tired, the day starting to catch up with him. “Agreed. We’ll need something more than what we usually do. We’ll talk about it next meeting, all right?”

“Sure thing.” Courfeyrac’s gaze shifts to a side. “R, don’t leave! I need to talk to you.”

Enjolras doesn’t look over, so he only hears Grantaire’s reply.

“Fuck off.”

Courfeyrac laughs. “I have serious things to discuss, I’ll even drop you home—oh, where the hell is Jehan?”

“Just went downstairs,” says Grantaire.

“Right, wait here,” Courfeyrac tells him, and leaves Enjolras with a slap on the shoulder before dashing downstairs.

Enjolras remains frozen for a moment, then turns slowly.

“There’s no need for that look, now,” Grantaire says quietly. “I’m too drunk to argue.”

He’s not looking at Enjolras, but peeling the label off a bottle of beer. This annoys Enjolras for reasons he can’t quite pinpoint.

“You were just talking to Jehan,” he points out.

“That was a conversation, it’s easier. We can’t hold those.”

“You don’t even _know_ if we can hold a conversation,” Enjolras says, and he doesn’t know why this, of all things Grantaire has said tonight, is what makes him snap completely. “It’s not like you talk to me when the others aren’t there.”

For all the time Grantaire spends trying to rouse him at meetings, he never seems to have something to say when they’re alone. Not that it happens often. Their relationship, if Enjolras can even call it that, has always been mediated by their friends. He recalls a few moments—cold words in a cold night on a balcony, during a party; an early morning at Courfeyrac’s, Grantaire sleeping his hangover away while Enjolras waited for his friend—and they are filled with silences and stilted, biting words, which leave a sour aftertaste unlike the anger he feels after their arguments.

He can’t see Grantaire’s expression, his eyes still focused on the bottle, but his voice is rough when he speaks. “I.” He clears his throat. “I didn’t think you noticed.”

There’s a sheepishness to him that’s never there when they are in a room filled with people. Take the others away, Enjolras thinks, leave them with all that free space, and they get stuck, like there’s no way to move.

“I’m not as completely oblivious as you all seem to think,” he says.

Grantaire seems to withdraw even further. “Right.”

“I’m not saying you have to,” Enjolras continues, sharper. Grantaire is not even trying to deny it, and it does not bother Enjolras at all, why would it? No one has to _want_ to talk to him. He’s used to people not wanting him around; he was never part of a group of friends until college. “What I don’t get why it’s so— _amusing_ to you to rile me up all the time. If all you’re looking for is an audience—”

Grantaire gives a startled laugh. “Is that what you think?”

Enjolras hesitates. He’s always wary of making assumptions; even more so when Grantaire is concerned. He knows he’s not the easiest person to deal with. People either like him or can’t stand him, and it’s easy to respond to those reactions, but Grantaire—Grantaire is hostile and mocking, Grantaire scorns his beliefs, and Grantaire stays.

“You never _tried_ to be friends with me,” he says.

Emotions flicker past Grantaire’s face too fast to be registered, let alone interpreted. His mouth falls open as he looks up at Enjolras, then flicks his eyes away. They scan the room, wide and restless.  

“I suppose I haven’t.”

There’s a drawn-out moment of silence.

“Right,” Enjolras breaks it. “It’s not like you have to.” He’s not disappointed, there is nothing to be disappointed about, this is just them clearing up what he already knew. “You’re friends with the others, it’s not like we have to be friends. You’re still part of the group. It’s fine.”

“What, like you _want_ to be friends?” Grantaire snorts, but when Enjolras stops to consider the question, he seems to deflate. “I—forget I said anything.”

He wonders how this conversation even started, why he’s keeping it going.

“Would that be so awful?” he shoots back. “I have friends, you know. They like me.”

“Of course they do,” Grantaire agrees. He looks distracted, like he’s only half aware of what he’s saying. “But since when are that lot the epitome of common sense?”

Enjolras has a retort on the tip of his tongue but cuts himself short. This is easy, he thinks. This is what they always do. There’s a weariness to Grantaire now that Enjolras has glimpsed a few times, usually after a night of particularly hard drinking, and the part of him that longs for answers drives him back to the point.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

It’s strange to see Grantaire so still, him whom Enjolras always sees moving, drinking, joking; he who is loud and quick, funny and smart when he wants to be, cruel and precise when he doesn’t. He looks at Enjolras with an odd, cautious look in his eye, as if he suspects him of setting a trap.

“Fine,” Enjolras breathes out, when no answer is forthcoming. There’s someone bitter in his mouth, and it tinges his next words. “Glad we straightened that out.” He turns to leave.

“No,” Grantaire exhales more than says the word. It stops him in his tracks. “I mean, no. It wouldn’t be awful.” He runs a hand through black curls. “Fuck, I never thought you’d… “

This is ten times more awkward than anything they’ve ever yelled at each other, Enjolras thinks. He’s surprised it doesn’t bother him more.

“Oh,” he says. “Really?”

Whatever Grantaire’s answer might have been, it’s cut by Courfeyrac’s voice. “I’m back! Good, you’re still here, Enj. I’m dying to get your insights on romance once again.”

“I don’t want to talk romance with you,” Grantaire murmurs, getting up with a hand on the table. His words falter, as do his feet. “Is this why you kept me here?”

“Yes, I need help from a hopeless romantic,” Courfeyrac says cheerfully, and as Grantaire mutters something under his breath, Enjolras wonders how on Earth Courfeyrac came to the conclusion Grantaire is the person he needs. 

“I’m serious. Enjolras is no help at all.”

Grantaire snorts; he tries not to let it annoy him.

“And you think I’ll be any better?” Grantaire sounds bitter. “Why are you asking for advice, anyway?”

“Courfeyrac is in love with Jehan,” Enjolras offers.

Grantaire gives Courfeyrac an odd, incredulous grin. “ _Are_ you, now?”

“Bitch, I might be,” Courfeyrac mutters, making Grantaire howl with laughter.

Enjolras suddenly feels the urge to flee. He grabs his bag, makes an excuse, and basically runs past Courfeyrac.

He glances at Grantaire before he goes through the door, but Grantaire is not looking at him.

*

“What just happened?” Courfeyrac asks.

“Nothing,” Grantaire says. And, to change the subject, “What the hell is this about Jehan?”

“Hm?” Courfeyrac murmurs, and, “Ouch,” when Grantaire punches him in the arm.

“You heard Enjolras!” There’s a hysterical edge to his voice. “I’m in love. With Jehan.”

It takes five seconds of staring for Courfeyrac to crack.

“Fine! How did you know?”

“I’m sort of an expert,” he says. Courfeyrac looks vaguely sympathetic, so he quickly adds, “It’s a terrible idea, you know.”

“It’s not even an _idea_ ,” Courfeyrac says, clasping his hands as if in prayer. He’s squirming where he stands, as if he’s being ripped apart from the inside. “It just sort of _happened_ , they just assumed and I didn’t say anything?”

“Why the hell not?”

“I don’t know, I panicked?”

“Jesus,” Grantaire mutters, laughing quietly.

“And I don’t know if I should take it back,” Courfeyrac continues, “but if I take it back I’ll have to explain, and—”

“And?” Grantaire asks, though he knows, of course.

“And I _can’t_. I have to be _sure_.”

Grantaire knows, but it doesn’t change the fact he sees the train wreck coming. “This is going to blow up in your face. Just tell him.”

Courfeyrac shuffles. “I have to make sure first, and I think I can,” he says stubbornly. “Maybe this is good. It shouldn’t be hard to get a clear sign. Right?”

“Sure,” he says, and tries to infuse some confidence into it.

“It has to,” Courfeyrac mutters.

He’s got this faraway look in his eyes, like he’s standing at the edge of some immeasurable fall, and Grantaire wonders if this is how he looks to the rest of them all the time. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Grantaire’s fault, Enjolras is sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! I really appreciate it! *showers you with love*

This is Grantaire’s fault, Enjolras is sure of it. He sits on the bed and broods, surrounded by the several books he needs to finish his last paper of the term—several books which he is currently not reading. They don’t all fit on his desk, not like they would on the living room table, which is where he _would_ be, had his apartment not been once again commandeered by Courfeyrac.

Laughter reaches him from the other side of the wall. He’s just late with work, he thinks, that's all, that’s why the sight of his friends—Courfeyrac, with Bossuet and Bahorel in tow—was such an unwelcome surprise earlier. That’s why he retreated to his bedroom, where he’s conspicuously not working, listening instead to Courfeyrac reenact scenes from movies he doesn’t recognize.

“I need to play to my strengths,” Courfeyrac promptly informed them, “which, we can all agree, is my offensive amount of talent. Everyone loves a good romantic speech. I just need to find the right one.”

He’s not quite sure how Combeferre has been bullied into staying, but as he was gathering his things he caught a glimpse of Courfeyrac slinging an arm around his friend’s shoulders and drilling him about his “favorite romcoms,” and was Enjolras sure he didn’t want to stay and learn about the ways of romance?

“Don’t _any_ of you have things to do?”

“We’re on vacation,” Bossuet pouted.

“And unemployed,” Bahorel added blithely. “Watching Courfeyrac embarrass himself is as good as the next thing.”

So now Enjolras nibbles on a pen with absentminded fury.

“In vain have I struggled,” Courfeyrac is reciting, a passionate edge to the words. “It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed.” A pause, and Enjolras swears there’s a crack in his voice, the bastard. “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

Grantaire must have told him something in the café last night. Not that Enjolras cares about anything Grantaire might or might not have said; he’s barely given it a thought. Well, fine. _Maybe_ Grantaire crossed his mind for a moment or two. (Maybe for the full hour it took him to fall asleep yesterday.) But it’s just that he’s stressed. When he’s stressed it’s hard to make his brain shut up, and now, with applause coming in from the living room, it’s no wonder his mind drifts again towards things it can’t grasp.

Anyone else and Enjolras would let them know that you can’t just _say things_ to Courfeyrac; only, they’re not friends. Except maybe Grantaire _wants_ to be friends, which is absolutely mystifying, and probably not even true. Looking back on their conversation has proven useless; at times, almost three years of evidence notwithstanding, Enjolras thinks he saw a side of Grantaire he’s never glimpsed before, yet the next moment he's convinced himself that Grantaire was just mocking him.

He makes a sound that is half groan, half whine, and which, thankfully, no one’s around to listen, then grabs his phone. He has Grantaire’s number, entered once by Éponine—because “you never know when you might need it”—and never before used.

_Courf is shouting poetry on my couch_ , he sends, and stares at nothing for about a minute.

R [2:12:49]: how is this my fault again?

Bahorel’s laugh is booming, Bossuet has taken on himself to direct the performance, and Enjolras can even hear Combeferre laugh. He is alone in his resistance.

_You were the last one to see him and now he has IDEAS and I can’t FINISH MY PAPER_

He sounds spiteful but he can just _imagine_ Grantaire’s sneer when he got his message, and what was he thinking when he send it in the first place? Grantaire doesn’t take thirty seconds to reply and Enjolras fleetingly wonders what he'd been doing before.

R [2:14:34]: ur caps r on

And:

R [2:14:55]: cant you go somewhere else?

He types furiously into the small keyboard.

_Library has no bed. I’m comfortable here._

He’s burrowed into a couple of pillows, legs stretched and body warm against the bedspread, a strange laziness mixed with a fidgety need to _do_ something, and then Grantaire's reply arrives.

R [2:15:52]: i have a bed

He blinks, lets out a strangled breath, then glares at the screen until the number on the upper right corner changes twice. It's a short enough message, it should not be this hard to figure out. His fingers hover over the keyboard; he startles when another message arrives before he can figure out what to say.

R [2:17:21]: also couch + waffles

A snorting laugh comes out of him, unbidden; he bites his lip. He has no clue, no idea whatsoever, if Grantaire is mocking him or not. How can one person make so little sense? Enjolras hates uncertainty. He likes knowing where he stands, and with Grantaire he is always adrift.

_Are you offering?_ he sends, before he can think about it. It seems like a long stretch of time before he gets a reply.

R [2:19:34]: sure

His fingers restlessly tapping a beat against the screen, then a split-second decision.

_I’ll be there in 20._

*

“What the _fuck_ ,” Grantaire says. His empty apartment offers no answer.

He looks up, scratches his face, looks back down. The message is still there. Maybe he’s hallucinating. Maybe this is the day he finally loses it. Maybe topping everything he drank last night with half a bottle of wine was the last straw, and his sense of reality is drifting away. 

Twenty minutes. He looks around him in a daze. His and Feuilly’s apartment is what happens when you put together an Art and a History major, one of which is always working and the other too lazy to clean. 

“Fuck.” Twenty fucking minutes. “ _Fuck_.”

He starts with the bottles: beer, wine, whiskey, a flowery liqueur Feuilly has bought; they all go in the bottom kitchen cabinet, which is already full; there’s food smelling in the fridge, half-empty take-outs cluttering the chair they keep by the couch, open snacks on the sink, all of which he stuffs in the garbage; strewn clothes are gathered and indiscriminately shoved in his closet; sketches, made on paper and napkins and food boxes, are systematically picked up and stuffed into drawers; the two canvases on the living room he pushes against a wall and covers hastily with a paint-stained sheet and—fucking hell, what does he even look like right now?

He scrambles to the bathroom, cringing when he meets his reflection; how many minutes have passed? He flings his clothes on the floor and takes a shower so fast the water doesn’t have time to heat, and his hair is not going to dry and Enjolras will realize he took a shower just for him and Grantaire will have to commit ritual suicide to salvage the last scraps of his dignity, he thinks, moving to the room then dashing back to get his dirty clothes, because what if Enjolras sees the bathroom? Though the real question is: what the fuck does he put on? And now he’s laughing alone in front of his closet, either the first sign of madness or a proper reaction to discovering oneself 23 going on 13. Nothing he owns is entirely clean, he doesn’t have any memories of ever doing laundry, but the minutes are flying so he throws on a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt; a moment later, he realizes his shivering is partly to blame on the weather and picks up a green sweatshirt with no visible stains.

He’s zipping up when the bell rings. He freezes, then moves at the speed of light.

I’m forgetting something, he thinks as he opens the door with more energy than is required, I’m forgetting something.

Enjolras stands on the other side, holding his laptop case and looking tired and crumpled and beautiful.

“Hey,” Grantaire croaks. He is the epitome of casualness.

“Hey,” Enjolras says, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. He gives Grantaire a once-over that makes him feel stripped and tied, which is a mental image he really doesn’t need right now. “Aren’t your feet cold?” Enjolras asks.

“Socks,” he murmurs. “That’s what it was.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Come in.”

He stands aside. The entrance hallway is narrow and Enjolras brushes against his arm on the way in. The fleeting contact prompts his body to remember everything he drank last night, and he desperately prays to anything that might be listening he doesn’t get sick.

Enjolras has stopped in the middle of the living room. Although it’s a fifteen-minute walk from the Musain, he has been in Grantaire’s apartment a grand total of two times—they’re not known as the hosts of many group parties, mostly because their friends are aware of the usual state of the place, and when he does have someone over it’s either Bahorel or Éponine, and their socializing is of the drink-until-you-drop variety. Enjolras was here once when he was the designated driver and Éponine stuffed Grantaire into his car and insisted Enjolras helped her bring him up (this he learned later); the second time was when Feuilly hurt his hand at work and they all came to visit (and Enjolras to rant about workplace safety regulations). Grantaire’s memory of the last one consists of two hours of his stomach churning, something like what it’s doing right now.

He wonders what Enjolras might be thinking of the place, with its used furniture and paint-stained floor and walls. Even after his clean-up, it’s not much to look at; and fuck, he should’ve opened the window—he barely notices the smell of cigarettes anymore, but he knows Enjolras hates it.

He’s furiously trying to think of something to say when Enjolras turns around. He seems—uncertain; his eyes flick up and down like he’s embarrassed. Grantaire’s gaping, but he can’t help it. Enjolras is never embarrassed; that’s a thing for other people, for him. It’s like coming home one day and discovering a room in the house you never knew was there.

Enjolras holds his phone up. “This _was_ an invitation, right?”

No, he thinks, that was momentary insanity. Never in a million years would I have thought you’d be here right now.

“Sure. Feuilly’s out, so. And I don’t know what Courf’s doing, but I’m sure it can be traced back to me somehow.”

“Did you really steal his food?”

“Yep.”

“ _Why_?” Enjolras asks, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“He was being annoying?” he tries.

The truth is that when Courfeyrac gets drunk, he gets clingy and forgets some topics are off limits. He’ll climb onto Grantaire’s lap and stick his tongue in his ear and murmur things like “Isn’t Enjolras _pretty_ tonight,” and because Grantaire is already drunk himself he’ll say things like, “Isn’t he always,” and Courfeyrac will laugh so hard he hits his head on the wall on his way to the floor. There’s no way to stop him, so Grantaire just grabs things sometimes. Little things, which Courfeyrac will search for later and wonder if he misplaced, but usually nothing so big that might lead him to suspect someone was tempted enough to take. Grantaire can be kind of an asshole.

He skips the first part but tells Enjolras the latter, and Enjolras huffs out a laugh. He's surprised to find it’s not sarcastic. It's—genuine. Friendly, even. Maybe because Grantaire said it wouldn’t be _awful_ to be _friends_ , as if he can handle whatever’s happening right now.

“I have this thing to finish,” Enjolras says off-handedly, tapping his laptop. “You really don’t mind I work here?”

Does he _mind_ —

“It’s fine,” he blurts out. “I bet you’re quieter than Feuilly, anyway. You can’t get him to shut up when he’s working. Or showering. Or doing anything, really. Not that I mind. You can sing, if you want to.”

“Thanks,” Enjolras says slowly, like Grantaire is some sort of strange creature he’s not sure it’s safe to approach yet.

“So, um.” His throat feels raw. “Do you want some stolen food?”

“Definitely,” Enjolras says, eager to the point of vindictive.

It’s really cute. Grantaire has to bite the inside of his mouth.

“I’ll be right back.”

He opens the fridge and doesn’t hesitate before quietly uncorking an open bottle of wine and taking a long gulp; his stomach complains and he puts it back feeling both better and worse.

Courfeyrac’s waffles are caramel and disgustingly sweet, bought in some expensive new patisserie. He wavers, then pours some more caramel over them, because when will he get the chance again? He can hear Enjolras intermittent bursts of typing in the living room; he even types angrily, Grantaire thinks. He’s giddy and terrified and thinks he might throw up from drinking or happiness or both.

Enjolras is cross-legged on the couch, computer on his lap. Grantaire stands on the threshold and just looks, for a moment. Enjolras looks casual, jeans and a light gray sweater rolled up at the sleeves; and it's just his forearms, for fuck's sake, why does he feel like it's the 1800s and he's just got a glimpse of his lover's ankles at a ball; why is he feeling warm all over? He's ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.  

Enjolras raises his eyes when he sees him, gives the caramel-covered waffles a look Grantaire would kill to be on the receiving end of, then takes a bite and makes a noise that can only be described as a moan.

His brain short-circuits; his body jolts awake.

Enjolras at least has the decency to look embarrassed; and he should, Grantaire thinks, how he can sit there _licking caramel off his fingers_ , like that’s a regular thing people do around other people, especially when they have no intention of pushing said people down onto their own furniture and having their way with them.

“I like caramel,” Enjolras shrugs, not nearly as apologetic as he should be.

“I know," he murmurs. 

"What?"

"What? Nothing."

They look at each other. 

This is a special kind of torture, he thinks, conjured up just for me—and before he realizes his mouth is open and words are flowing out of him; the other extreme of the nervousness scale, the only alternative to staring in silent disbelief.

He needs to keep clear of anything that might bring Enjolras to his senses—their friends, their fights, their politics—, which doesn’t leave him much room. Work seems safe; he starts telling about this rude guy who came by the café that morning, which leads to talking about Musichetta taking pity on him a few months back after the store he worked at closed and hiring him as barista, and how he’s amazed at the ridiculous shit customers do; Enjolras seems surprised at first but then bites his waffles and chews calmly and _listens_ to him and Grantaire is _still_ speaking, somehow; now he’s started rambling about the Art department, his professors, his colleagues, and _Jesus Christ_ , why isn’t Enjolras interrupting this tirade?

“You’re joking,” Enjolras snorts in the middle of a story he’s not sure why he started telling. “You didn’t seriously convince a teacher a pile of chairs was your piece?”

“It’s not that I _convinced_ him,” he explains. “He just walked in and saw me next to it and assumed it was a bold artistic statement. So I sort of ran with it? It was Modern Art.”

Enjolras mulls over this for a moment. “What did you call it?” he asks.

“Barricade,” he says gravely. Enjolras snickers. “Thanks for the inspiration, by the way.”

“You’re impossible.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

Enjolras twists to places his plate on the couch arm and Grantaire thinks, maybe. Maybe I can actually do this. And then Enjolras frowns, reaching behind and beneath him somewhere and pulling something from the depths of his couch.

“What’s this?”

His heart stops. Enjolras is holding one of his sketchbooks.

“Sorry,” Enjolras says quickly, like he’s been caught red-handed. His eyes flick back and forth between _it_ and Grantaire. “It was stuck under the cushion. It was already open,” he adds, almost defensive.

It was already open. Of _course_ it was. Why doesn’t he just tuck sketches of Enjolras surrounded by tiny hearts in between his rally pamphlets? He approaches the couch like he’s walking to the gallows, trying to peek what he’d been drawing last and assess how much damage has been done.

It’s a picture of the group; just a quick study, a sketch to take his mind off things. He tried to recreate a moment of one of their nights together: the outline of Courfeyrac and Marius’s apartment is distinct on the background; in the foreground, five people play cards on the floor: Éponine, Joly, Bossuet, Courfeyrac and Jehan. The drawing is painfully unfinished, but Enjolras is looking at it as if it’s something to be deciphered.

“This is yours.” It’s not a question.

“Yeah.”

Enjolras looks at him. “You’re really good,” he states calmly, as if that’s the most natural thing he could say, as if he puts the words _really good_ and _Grantaire_ together in sentences all the time.

“It’s just a sketch,” he says, voice thin and stunned.

“I didn’t see you drawing at the apartment.”

“I did it here.”

“You drew this by heart?”

It’s got to be a joke, his brain whispers to him, there’s no way there’s a hint of admiration in Enjolras’s voice. Either his brain or Enjolras is playing a really cruel joke on him.

“It’s no big deal,” he says. It really isn’t. “I draw them all the time, so it sort of just comes to m— _what are you doing_?”

What he’s doing is pretty obvious: he is turning a page. The next one is a drawing of Cosette; Grantaire has only seen her once, when Marius introduced her before their first date, but he immediately felt the need to draw her. Enjolras murmurs appreciatively, left hand holding the sketchbook, right hand hovering over the bottom right corner of the page. It’s like playing Russian roulette.

Then Enjolras asks, “Have you ever drawn me?” and he grips the edge of the table behind him.

“Have I ever—”

He wants to say: yes, I draw you all the time. I watch you at meetings and think about how the line of your jaw and your nose and your cheekbones will look in pencil; I spend entire classes thinking about all the ways I could try to mimic the fire in your eyes; I burn you in my mind whenever I see you, then come home and put you to paper. He wants to say: you were the first thing I drew after years of not caring enough about anything to want it recorded.

He wants to say a lot of things, but he’s long trained himself to hold them back. Yet his face, it seems, betrays him; Enjolras reads the truth in the shade of pink he’s probably sporting right now.

“I—really? Can I see it?”

“What? _No_.”

Enjolras scowls. “Why not?”

“Because,” Grantaire says, in what he hopes is a reasonable tone friends use to make points to one another, “they’re just sketches. You’re—I mean, no one's supposed to see them.” He runs a hand through his hair.

Enjolras narrows his eyes. “I don’t think that’s the reason,” he says.

Grantaire laughs shrilly. “I—of course it is—why would I not show you—eat your waffles.”

He sticks the plate on top of the drawing, but Enjolras holds it with one hand while the other firmly grasps the sketchbook.

“I don’t _know_ why,” Enjolras says, and now there’s a sharpness to his tone that is all too familiar to him. “But you realize that it’s weird you’re hiding them from me, now that I’ve seen this. You realize I can only assume you drew me,” he gesticulates vaguely, “I don’t know, as Napoleon or something—”

Grantaire laugh is genuine. “I love how that’s legitimately the worst thing your brain could come up with.”

The scowl is definitely in place now. “If you’d just let me see it—”

“You’re curious, aren’t you?” Grantaire asks, feeling a rush of exhilaration. “You’re actually curious.”

"I, yes?" Enjolras huffs. "Of course I am."

He's curious, Grantaire thinks with wonder. That’s a new emotion in the short spectrum of things he can make Enjolras feel; he’ll take curious, he’ll run with it, he’ll make a shrine to it. Curiosity is not scorn, or hatred, or indifference, and all it took was this? It’s like accidentally discovering a shortcut after crossing the same rutted road for years, and it turns out the new way is brighter and smoother and has been there all along.

Enjolras is looking pissed now, and Grantaire can’t help it: he’s so used to craving any kind of attention from him that he’s almost laughing.

“I promise I didn’t draw you as Napoleon. There, you can sleep tonight.” Enjolras glares sullenly. Grantaire sighs. “I—I’ll draw you a new one,” he suggests.

An eyebrow rises. “But the other ones will still exist and I’ll know they’re there, somewhere, and that you’re hiding them from me.”

“It must be exhausting being you,” he says. Then, casually, “There’s some more caramel if you want.”

Enjolras puts the plate on the couch arm stubbornly. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Don’t you have a paper to write?”

“I do,” Enjolras says accusingly, “and you’re distracting me.”

“By all means, get back to your work, I’ll just take _this_ —”

He moves to take the sketchbook, but Enjolras is faster: he raises his arm, and Grantaire almost falls on top of him trying to keep his balance, and wouldn’t _that_ be the best and worst thing to ever happen to him.

Enjolras blinks at him innocently.

“Really?” Grantaire says, in what he hopes is a chastising tone. “That’s really mature.”

Enjolras shrugs. “No witnesses.”

Grantaire almost wishes there were, so someone could confirm to him this is actually happening.

He stretches his arm, open palm upwards, like a parent to a rowdy child, though the effect is ruined by the fact he’s breathless, feeling warm all over, probably looking like he just ran a marathon.

“Very convincing.”

“Give me the goddamn book!”

“Come and get it.”

Yep, he thinks—those words actually left Enjolras’s mouth and he was there to hear them, and they were directed at _him._ What a time to be alive; if only he could move his limbs and get his book back.

He wants to reach out again. (Well, no: what he wants is to curl up around Enjolras, to put his mouth against the triangle of exposed skin below his neck and above his shirt that’s a source of constant torture to him, to gently beg Enjolras to do anything to him, which can involve as much caramel as his heart desires—but on a more practical level, at this exact moment, he wants to get his sketchbook back.) He also wants Enjolras to have that pleased look on face for as long as possible, yet something in him already whispers he’s going to ruin this; Enjolras’s smile is playful now but it’ll be irritated soon enough, and if he doesn’t finish his paper Grantaire knows he will look back on this and regret ever coming over.

He fidgets. “If I show you one, will you let it go?”

Enjolras perks up. “Yes.”

He tugs at his hair; there, the jitters again. Enjolras takes the laptop case and puts it on the floor, freeing the spot beside him on the couch. He stares. Enjolras looks at him, raises an eyebrow meaningfully.

“Ah,” he says. It’s a spot, for him, on the couch. Because that’s what friends do. (And he cuts that thought short; he’s not using the word; words turn into hope, and he knows hope always leads to disappointment.) He sits stiffly.

“Would you like to choose, then?” Enjolras asks, slightly teasing.

He takes the book and twists on the couch so as to hide it from Enjolras’s line of sight. Enjolras rolls his eyes.

It doesn’t take long for him to find drawings of Enjolras, because he never strays too long from sketching him. Unsteady hands leaf through the pages, until finally stopping at one. This is stupid, he thinks, all this expectation and it's not even particularly good. He picks a sketch of Enjolras speaking at a rally, half-turned, profile sharp as a blade, the people beneath him indistinct swirls, unimportant to the drawing as their real life counterparts were to him as he observed the scene from a distance. His trace feels too awkward and too natural at the same time. (Every time there’s a thrill when the lines come together and _he_ emerges, a carefully guarded memory, a face committed to heart.) This is not Enjolras at the Musain, drawn up close, a smile—directed at someone else—recreated in detail. Yet to Grantaire, everything about it transpires admiration and love, and when he hands the sketchbook to Enjolras he swears he’s not going to watch for his reaction, because he’s sure Enjolras will just know immediately, and he doesn’t need this kind of pain, he won't look, he  _won’t_ —

He looks.

Lowered eyes graze over the painting like a caress; Enjolras lets out a breath through his mouth. He looks and looks and Grantaire is slowly dying and he’s still looking.

Then the sketchbook is on Enjolras’s lap and Enjolras is leaning back.

“Did you draw this by heart too?”

He digs his nails into his palms.

“Like I promised,” he manages to get out, somehow. “No funny stuff.”

"I won't doubt you again," Enjolras murmurs, then closes the sketchbook gently. “I, um," scratching the back of his neck, "I should get to work."

This hurts, and he’s not sure if it’s a good or a bad hurt, has always been unable to distinguish when Enjolras is concerned; he’s not even quite sure why it should hurt in the first place. He gets up, leaving the sketchbook in Enjolras’s hands, and moves to the kitchen, where there is something to be drunk and a wall to lean against. Enjolras starts typing again after a few moments. Grantaire stays put until the alcohol settles into his bloodstream and he feels something like human again; Enjolras raises his head when he steps back in the living room, but he waves.

“I have stuff to do,” he mumbles, “carry on.”

_Stuff_ means sitting at the desk pretending to do something while watching Enjolras out of the corner of his eye. Two hours pass like this. He writes and deletes two e-mails to Éponine (he starts off asking about work and ends up babbling nonsense); then types half-formed thoughts for the rest of the time, wishes and confessions which he immediately deletes as soon as they show up on the screen.

He’s wondering how much of this proximity he can stand before breaking when Enjolras abruptly stops typing.

“What time does Feuilly get out of work?” he asks.

He startles. “Um, six.” His screen shows 5:47.

“Oh. Well, I’m finished,” Enjolras says, closing his laptop. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

“No problem.”

Silence, heavy and uncomfortable.

“I should get going.”

He doesn’t want to be here when Feuilly gets home, Grantaire thinks. He's suddenly sure that Enjolras told no one where he was heading; it’s just something else that hadn’t occurred to him but now sits heavily on his chest, and he wonders if there’s anything at all Enjolras could do that wouldn’t stick needles into him.

When Enjolras is at the other side of the door and he leans his head against it, Grantaire breathes like he’s just remembered how, and realizes he isn’t telling anyone either. 

*

“Hey,” Combeferre greets him from the couch, a book in his hands. “Managed to get some work done?”

“Yeah. What happened to him? Did you knock him out?”

Courfeyrac is snoring, right leg drawn up against the back of the couch, left leg dangling toward the floor, head thrown back on Combeferre’s lap. His mouth is open; from it slowly descends a trickle of drool. A blanket has been thrown over him. When Enjolras came in, he glimpsed Combeferre running a hand through his hair.

“He and Grantaire went out last night,” Combeferre explains, speaking softly. “When he got here earlier he hadn’t slept for over a day.”

Enjolras doesn’t know why it should bother him that Grantaire never mentioned it; Grantaire had no reason to discuss what he did or didn’t do with Courfeyrac. But then, Grantaire had no reason to allow him to invade his home for the better part of an afternoon. Grantaire’s reasons for anything are a mystery.

Combeferre seems to be examining him. “Are you all right?”

Why shouldn’t he be? He’s about to answer when he notices Combeferre himself looks tired, his hair messy and bags under his eyes. The end of the term must’ve taken a bigger toll on him than Enjolras realized.

He avoids the question for some reason. “Are _you_?”

Combeferre’s eyes flick down, then back at him. “Yeah, of course.”

It feels like something’s unsaid between them—and not just on his side. In the middle of whatever’s going on with Grantaire, the last thing he wants is awkwardness with his best friend.

“I’m free at last,” he raises the laptop with one hand.

“Congratulations. What are you going to do now?”

He considers. “Read the news?”

“Whoa, there,” Combeferre says, finally smiling. “Don’t get _too_ wild. The children need a good example. You’re going to the café tonight?”

Thursday is not an official meeting night for the Amis, but most nights they usually find themselves at one point or another at the café, vacation or not; the only variable is the coffee/alcohol ratio. It occurs to him Grantaire is almost always there, which is irrelevant, because it’s not like it’ll affect his decision.

“Why not,” he says. “Call me when Courf wakes up.”

He does catch up on the state of the world, and it’s wonderful to go through the feeds he follows, like emerging from a long and stale academic sleep—yet a while later he finds he’s nervously turning his phone in his hand, growing angrier by the minute as he reads the same piece of news over and over again. He types, _No one’s ever drawn me before_ , then deletes the unsent message. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this was ok! It took forever to revise and I'm still not entirely pleased with it, bleh. Also, the chair thing actually happened at the Arts department in my uni, believe it or not.
> 
> Anyway, come say hi on [Tumblr](http://sonhoedesrazao.tumblr.com)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you very very much for reading

“He’s terrifying, you have no idea—he’s actually been to _jail_ , and she’d told me before but I didn’t take her _seriously_ , I mean, I thought it was for drunk driving or something, but he spent _years_ in prison and he’s got this face like he could snap me in _half_.” Marius takes a shuddering breath. “He could. He totally could.”

He’s been trying to get the whole story out before Cosette and Musichetta come back from wherever they’ve disappeared to. Enjolras has missed big chunks of it. There is music blasting off around them, the sort of dull, constant beat that plays in clubs like this and that seems to thrum inside his bones; he’s surrounded by the clogging smell of smoke and feeling too warm against his friends, pressed against the back of a leather couch. They sit on a balcony that oversees an overcrowded dance floor, which he has no intention of examining up-close.

He’d tried getting out of this, but Courfeyrac had been adamant, and Jehan had agreed that it was required that they celebrate the end of the term, and Éponine quickly put in that this guy she was seeing knew a Place (you could almost hear the upper case) and they _all_ _absolutely had to come_.

All but Grantaire, apparently, who hasn’t shown up yet. Grantaire, who didn’t show up the night before, either, and who supposedly has better things to do. Enjolras realized, when the thought occurred to him, that he has no idea what those might be. Now he sits and he nurses his drink, something red that burns its way down his throat, very consciously not thinking about Grantaire. He’s never seen the appeal of alcohol, but every now and then his friends get in their heads he needs to “loosen up”, so Enjolras sips whatever it is that Courfeyrac ordered for him and listens to the various conversations around the table.

“And he was like, where are you taking Cosette? Like he thought, um. So I said it was this club that one of our friends knew, and he asked which friend—”

“Oh my god,” Éponine gasps.

“And I said Montparnasse and his face was like,” Marius makes inarticulate noises, “like a block of cement that could shoot lasers, I thought I wasn’t getting out alive.”

“Yeah, I know the old man,” the guy—Montparnasse—drawls, taking a drag on his cigarette. Éponine is sitting on his lap, and starts laughing at Marius’s expression.

“Where the hell are you,” Courfeyrac is hissing into his phone, so loud Enjolras can hear him from across the table. He’s not looking, but it’s easy to single out Coufeyrac’s angry tone. “If you’re not here in ten minutes you’re going to regret it, do you hear? Everyone’s here, and I mean _everyone_ —oh, yeah, sure you don't—“

Bossuet, next to Enjolras, has arm around Joly. “Are you okay?” he asks at his boyfriend’s ear. Joly looks almost as bemused as he feels; it’s pretty crowded in there and he imagines his friend has hundreds of qualms about the situation. (“If Joly is going,” Courfeyrac had said the night before, “you have no excuse.”)

“I’m fine,” Joly answers, with a laugh that sounds a bit forced.

Just then Cosette and Musichetta come back; the former drags Marius away and the latter drops on Joly’s other side and starts to say something in his ear that makes him look happier, and which Enjolras makes an effort not to overhear.

He turns to his other side, where Combeferre is explaining his plans for an internship at a local lab with Jehan (who’s wearing a black leather jacket with _spikes_ and eyeliner and Enjolras doesn’t try to understand his friends’ fashion choices anymore), while across from them Bahorel and Feuilly discuss things and people they know from somewhere else, dropping names Enjolras doesn't recognize.

Courfeyrac puts his phone in the inside pocket of his jacket. “R is on his way!”

There are shouts and hoots and Enjolras feels he shouldn’t have drunk whatever was put in front of him, because it’s not sitting well in his stomach.

“Are we going down or not?” Jehan shouts. “Cosette’s making Marius dance. I want to see his moves!”

“Wait, I think I can see them from here!” Bahorel leans over the railing and points. “There they are!”

Enjolras is too far to see, but the entire row of his friends who’s on the dance floor side almost falls off their chairs; Courfeyrac already has his phone out again and has started filming.

“But really, we should go,” Éponine says. “If only to make sure he never does that again.”

People start shifting, and there are sudden empty spaces beside him as Combeferre is pulled up by Jehan, while Bossuet, Joly and Musichetta slide off to the other side.

A hand on his shoulder; Courfeyrac looms over him.

“He’s coming, right?” says Jehan; then to him, “If Ferre’s coming, you have to!”

“It doesn’t work like that at all,” Enjolras shouts.

Courfeyrac, surprisingly, shakes his head at Jehan. He grips Enjolras’s shoulder. “Someone’s got to stay so R will know where out table is.”

“I can stay with you,” Combeferre offers.

“Unless you want to dance?” Courfeyrac is asking at the same time.

He shoots daggers at Courfeyrac, who knows perfectly well how he feels about dancing and clubs and dancing in clubs. Beside, he has no problem with staying. No problem at all. “Fine,” he says, and waves to Combeferre. “Go enjoy your night, it’s all right.”

Combeferre reassures him he’ll be back soon, and before he realizes he’s sitting alone at a table for ten.

He tries his drink one more time. It goes down easier, and he allows himself a longer gulp; when he puts down the glass, he has to blink a couple of times. He doesn’t need to drink now he’s alone. Not that he _needed_ to before, but there are things he’s expected to do as part of his “college experience”, and though Enjolras doesn’t care for many of them and doesn’t care who knows he doesn’t care, sometimes it’s easier than swimming against the current. He knows his friends would love him even if he did “only surface for coffee and justice”, as Grantaire put it once, but he can’t help wondering if they appreciate it when he tries.

He’s just reached the conclusion his drink is really not all that bad when a voice cuts through his thoughts.

“Did I step into an alternate universe?” it says, and Enjolras’s head snaps up like a spring.

Grantaire has a bottle in hand. He’s wearing dark jeans and a black leather jacket over a purple shirt that’s loose on him, and Enjolras bets he didn’t brush his hair. He looks like he just got up and put on the first thing available, and the result is casual and effortless, something Enjolras can never pull off.

“I drink,” he says defensively.

“Only things with illegal amounts of caffeine,” Grantaire counters.

He gives Enjolras a lazy grin.

“They’re dancing,” he says, to cut the silence. “They went to, um—so I could tell you.” His words are not making up full sentences. He looks down at his drink. “This is horrible.”

Grantaire laughs; the sound cuts through the noise and the smoke. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. Are you going?”

“Where?”

“Dancing.”

Grantaire likes dancing. A memory comes to mind—Grantaire spinning Éponine around in someone’s party—and then a second image, one of a club like this. Jehan’s birthday last year, Grantaire flush against a stranger, his hands wandering, moving with purpose. He doesn’t know where the memory comes from; remembers looking away at the time.

Grantaire has said something.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said, should I?” Grantaire repeats.

What kind of question is that? He studies Grantaire, who’s taking another sip right out of the bottle in his hand, eyes trained on him all along; Enjolras is certain he started drinking before arriving. It’s a familiar Grantaire, which should be easier to deal with, he thinks, than whatever version of him receives Enjolras in his house and sits quietly while he works. He should be a familiar version of himself, too, which is why the words that come out of his mouth surprise himself.

“You’d leave me here alone?”

“I could take you down with me.”

Grantaire drunk is usually irritating, but something’s different tonight. His grin is blinding and his eyes are defiant and wry, but his teasing lacks its usual bite, something warm in his tone full of suggestions Enjolras doesn’t know how to decode. Whatever’s floating in his bloodstream, warm and tingly, makes him grin as well.

“Maybe I’ll go,” he says, then laughs at the thought. “I haven’t danced since that New Year’s.”

He doesn’t specify, but Grantaire will definitely remember—it was their first year, and Courfeyrac had decided to throw a New Year’s party to cheer Marius up after he had a big holiday fight with his family. He remembers people he never saw before roaming the hallways inside and outside Courfeyrac’s apartment, remembers music and laughter and himself tasting alcohol for the first time; a looseness to his limbs and cool air in the balcony, where he’d seen Grantaire passed out at one point in the night.

“It’s debatable whether that can be called dancing,” Grantaire says.

“Look who has high standards all of a sudden,” he mutters, face warm. “You’re a great dancer, then?”

Grantaire’s grin softens. “I know some moves.”

“Oh?” A flash in his mind of bodies too close to one another, and he’ll never again mock his friends for the things they say when they’ve been drinking. “Are you saying that you'll teach me?”

Grantaire’s drink of choice is whiskey; Enjolras reads the label when the bottle is set on the table with a thud. He stares into feverish eyes that bore into his; Grantaire breathes out.

“I don’t know. Is that you want?”

At some point the conversation, or whatever he can call this, has gotten away from him. He feels sluggish, unable to deal with Grantaire, who can keep up with him even when _he_ ’s drunk and Enjolras sober. Grantaire must be mocking him again; Enjolras is just too slow to tell. It’s not fair.

“You’re drunk,” he states, and regrets it right away.

Grantaire flinches. “Isn’t that a given?” His grin quickly contorts into a grimace; he sounds like something’s scratching his throat from the inside out. “You’re the one who asked.”

Enjolras matches his tone. “I didn’t ask.”

“Yeah, of course you didn’t.” And, out of nowhere, “Why did you wait for me?”

“You were late,” he says. He knows it's the wrong thing to say even if he can't tell why. “They all wanted to go down. Someone needed to stay.”

He remembers Grantaire as he looked at his drawings, looking hesitant and strangely fearful. Now he looks spiteful, maybe furious, maybe something else entirely, and Enjolras doesn’t know how to go back to a place where things weren’t completely awful between them, if that place ever existed; doesn’t know when he started wanting to find it. Maybe it was a fluke, maybe this is all they can ever be to one another. Grantaire’s the one who didn’t show up yesterday, he thinks, and it angers him that the thought keeps returning to his mind.

He wants to say something, but nothing comes to mind fast enough and Grantaire is already snatching the bottle back. “Well, you’re free now”, he says, and Enjolras finds himself alone.

*

Jehan’s arms are around his neck, but his words are muffled. It takes Grantaire a lot to get drunk, the kind of drunk normal people consider _drunk_ —slurring, stumbling, shouting things you won’t remember, groping friends and kissing strangers, jumping on and off places, giggling incessantly—but every once in a while he makes an effort.

“Nooo,” Jehan whines in his ear, though he’s speaking to someone behind Grantaire, “why are you stealing him, I miss my R!”

“We’re going home,” he hears Feuilly’s voice; feels a hand on his shoulder. “Jehan—Jehan, let go—”

He doesn’t want to go home, he’s having fun. The place is loud and crowded and he’s made out with two—three?—people that seemed fairly attractive, but he hasn’t even got or given a handjob in a public bathroom; the night’s still young. He tries to spin and tell this to Feuilly, but everything swirls before his eyes.

There are so many people around them. He’s caught glimpses of the others but it’s impossible to tell whether that was five minutes or two hours ago. He even saw Combeferre by the bar, Courfeyrac draped over him, and he didn’t think, isn't thinking, at all about whom he didn’t see, because what would be the point of drinking himself into the floor if his thoughts were still whirling around the same person like moths circling a flame?

No, no, he’s fine—he likes this club, has to tell Éponine that Montparnasse did something right, for once. He’ll do that as soon as he gets up.

“Come on, I got you.” Impossibly strong arms beneath his, and he’s being pulled up and dragged away by his roommate, protests ignored entirely.

If he cranes his neck to look at the balcony, Feuilly kindly doesn’t mention it as they leave the club.

*

Combeferre finds him when there is no more vodka. It tasted much nicer than the red drink, and Enjolras is going to have words with Courfeyrac, because he doesn’t know how to pick drinks for his friends. 

“Have you just been here drinking all this time?”

“No,” Enjolras says. Slowly. His tongue feels funny. “Yes.”

Three people had come to talk to him, none of them his friends, and he vaguely remembers pushing them away; but Jehan had stopped by, too, and then Bossuet and Joly for a while, and Éponine had plopped down and grumbled about what’s-his-name, and at one point Marius had leaned in and asked if he was okay. He was, he was great. He feels light and carefree. 

“Maybe we should go.” Someone’s shaking his shoulder. “Enjolras?”

“I don’t know how we got here,” he mumbles.

“By car?” Combeferre suggests, raising an eyebrow.

Enjolras waves him away. That’s not what he means at all, he’s talking about—about something else. Why is Combeferre frowning? Enjolras doesn’t see how much clearer he can be. He might be skipping a few parts, but Combeferre is his best friend, and he never needed Enjolras to spell things out for him.

“It was not my fault,” he says.

“Course not,” Combeferre says gently, pulling him up. “We’re going.”

“What, no!” Courfeyrac whines, appearing from the bowels of the club like he’s been hiding under a chair waiting for his cue. “This is a momentous occasion! Like a comet, a drunk Enjolras will only pass us by again in a decade!”

“I hate you,” Enjolras slurs.

“You _are_ a terrible friend,” Combeferre adds, but Enjolras swears he’s smiling, and he needs to remember to be pissed off about this later.

Later. He focuses on breathing, something trying to climb up his throat. He—he just needs a quiet moment, while Combeferre and Courfeyrac talk.

“Why would you come with me?” Combeferre is saying.

“To lend a hand with Kerouac over here, obviously,” Courfeyrac says.

“Hey,” he protests weakly.

“I can deal with Enjolras.” Combeferre puts an arm around his waist. Enjolras can feel him sigh. “Enjoy your night.”

“No, no, really, I’m sorry.” Courfeyrac is uncommonly solicitous; Enjolras just needs him to stop waving, it’s making the spinning worse. “I was the one who dragged him in here. The least I can do is help you drag him out.”

No one’s dragging me anywhere, he wants to say.

“I’m going to be sick,” he announces instead, with as much dignity as he can.

Combeferre looks him over. “All right,” he says after a pause, but not to Enjolras.

*

“Do you need anything?” Feuilly asks, like a parent putting a sick child to bed.

He loves Feuilly. Feuilly is the best. He studies and works and still buys food for the both of them and when Grantaire is drunk he takes care of him and never mentions when he cries.

“Yes, I know.” A hand brushing hair out of his face. “Will you be all right?”

Feuilly looks at him with eyes almost too kind to bear; he closes his and sees blue ones instead. Something bright and painful expands in his chest, and all is right with the world.

“Yes,” he lies, and falls asleep.

*

The club’s bathroom has dark tiles and a door closes behind him and Combeferre holds him up; outside there are people coming and going, people filling his field of vision when they emerge, more people as they walk so that he can’t breathe or see—but then cool air hits him, the arm around him and the hands on his shoulders guide him away from the crowd; he gets into a car, out of the car, into and out of an elevator; it feels like he’s just left the club, like he’s just spoken with Grantaire, time is hard to grasp—bathroom again, a familiar one this time, a carpet he recalls, an action he’s not used to. 

There’s a soothing hand making circles in his back, and someone’s laughing softly on the sink.

“I hate you,” he mumbles, two seconds or two hours after dropping on his knees.

“Come on, Enj,” Courfeyrac pipes, indecently cheerful. “This is a special moment for every young man.”

“At least you didn’t do anything embarrassing,” Combeferre says in his ear.

_This_ is embarrassing, he thinks. He doesn’t do this. He’s in control, he’s the designated driver; he has no penchant for drinking or partying. He’s not sure where things went wrong.

A thought occurs to him and he groans loudly. “ _Please_ don’t tell Grantaire.”

“You’d deprive him of this? Don’t be cruel!”

“No one’s telling _anything_ to _anyone_ ,” Combeferre says pointedly, and Enjolras has never loved him more. “Don’t pout. Hold him up while I get some water and pajamas.”

Combeferre rises and Courfeyrac jumps to join him on the floor, crossing his legs.

“You’re lucky everyone was off doing terrible things themselves to notice you going on a bender. Bahorel got into a fight with this dude, and later I saw Jehan grinding against the same guy. Remind me to ask about that story later.”

Enjolras frowns, placing his head against cool porcelain. “You sound cheerful, considering it's Jehan.”

“Oh, right,” Courfeyrac murmurs noncommittally. “I’m being strong not to break the group apart.”

“I never even noticed you were in love with him,” he admits.

“That’s not surprising,” Courfeyrac says, “you don’t even notice when people are in love with you,” and then gasps as soon as the words leave his mouth.

Enjolras blinks.

“What?”

“I’m kidding.” A laugh. “Just kidding, of course—” He ruffles Enjolras’s hair; waves a hand in front of his face. “This is not the Freudian slip you are looking for.”

“Ninety per cent of the time I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“I’m a man of mystery,” Courfeyrac confides.

By then Combeferre is back, and Enjolras forgets about the conversation entirely after being led to a warm bed. He’s asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

*

The day after is a Saturday, which is just what Grantaire needs.

Despite being a tight-knit, sickeningly codependent group, they do lead separate lives. They see each other at the café during the week, but the couples—duos or trios, depending on the case—usually spend the weekends on their own, and the rest of them don’t necessarily all get together. So no one will think it weird if he disappears from the face of the earth for a couple of days. He has plans—wonderful plans. Plans that involve a circuit of every seedy bar he knows in town. Plans that involve alcohol and sex in public bathrooms. Plans that can only end in a vicious circle of self-hatred.  

He stretches. It’s bright in his room, white curtains letting in what seems to be a beautiful day; he’d prefer if it was raining and miserable. There’s a fuzzy memory of Feuilly in his mind from the night before; the fact he’s got the bedspread over him and is not wearing pants pointing to his friend’s presence. There’s a hole in his stomach and he feels a familiar illness. Most of what happened the night before is lost in a haze, but not what he tried to forget. Memories of Enjolras are immune to alcohol.

He doesn’t intend to get up until noon, but his phone, which Feuilly must’ve placed at the bedside table, accuses 2:37 p.m. He needs a drink. Food, even.

Grantaire shuffles to the kitchen, pours himself half a cup of cold coffee and completes it with whiskey, then shuffles back into the living room.

“Morning, sunshine,” Feuilly greets.

Grantaire takes a seat beside him, on the very spot where Enjolras sat. Feuilly’s watching TV and eating lunch, like a proper human being. Grantaire takes a long gulp of the fowl mix he’s prepared and murmurs, “Thank you.” He really hates himself this morning, more than usual.  

“Don’t mention it,” Feuilly says off-handedly.

On the TV, some procedural he doesn’t know. Feuilly takes a bite out of a big sandwich, and Grantaire knows for a fact his friend bought every single ingredient in it. He doesn’t remember the last time he brought actual food into the house. On the other hand, he never lets the stock of booze dry up.

“Big plans today?”

“ _Today_ is halfway through,” Feuilly points out, “but yes.”

“Oh? You’ve got a date?”

“Unless it’s with Bahorel.”

“I hope not,” Grantaire groans. “Where are you going?”

“A fashion show.”

He misses a beat. “ _Why_?”

“He’s dating one of the models.”

“ _How long have I been asleep?_ ”

“Dating is maybe the wrong word. He got together with her yesterday. Cosette bumped into this girl last night that she knew from when she worked with a designer or something, I don’t know, I missed half the story. Anyway, she was impressed with Bahorel’s waistcoat, said he had a wonderful sense of fashion,” Feuilly snorts, “and next I saw him he seemed pretty busy. He sent a message this morning. You’re invited too, by the way.”

“I plan on enjoying my hangover,” he lies. It comes easily, he's done it before; otherwise they worry, and Grantaire can’t stand to have them worry about him. “Did you get together with a model too?”

“Fingers crossed, by the end of the day.” Feuilly raises his cup in a mock toast.

Grantaire laughs. “I feel this is vaguely offensive, don’t let Enjolras hear yo—” he halts; the name, like an incantation, drives the air out of his lungs.

“R?”

“It’s fine,” he lies again. “The usual. Let’s not talk about it. Tell me about people other than me embarrassing themselves.”

“Well, the star of the evening was Jehan,” Feuilly starts, and Grantaire is immensely thankful for the distraction.

Feuilly finishes his lunch, force feeds him breakfast, does the dishes despite his protests (“You’ve cleaned up the place, don’t worry about it”), and leaves soon after.

He looks around the apartment; there’s nothing to clean. He has no wish to paint or read or even listen to music. He drops on his bed again and tells himself he’s not going to think about it, a resolution that stands for a whole minute before he’s thinking about it. Not lazily, either, no—he remembers actively, recalls the night in excruciating detail, relives every word and every look, dissects Enjolras’s tone with a masochistic pleasure in discovering more and more layers of scorn with every sentence; he does this over and over again, blaming himself for being a drunken moron and obsessing over how he ruined Enjolras’s offer of peace, if that’s what the last couple of days were, and after a while he gets up and goes to the fridge to get something which is definitely not food.

Enjolras was trying, he thinks. It’s not his fault Grantaire can’t bear to look at him sober, that he can barely open his mouth around him without alcohol in his bloodstream, that the day Enjolras saw his sketches he’d drunk himself to sleep, for no better reason than being around Enjolras had made him feel worn thin.

So he thinks, it’s not like I can make this any worse, and sends a message.

*

“It’s Saturday, Enjolras. We’ve done all we can, no one’s going to talk to us about rallies on their weekend.”

He scowls. Combeferre is being perfectly reasonable, but he’s feeling buzzed; since waking up he’s sketched out a plan of three events for next semester besides presenting his master plan for the Mabeuf rally in September. Courfeyrac had pointed out, pouting, that he can’t even be hung over like a normal human being.

That’s not true—he feels terrible. He’s eaten some toast since waking up and a really bland soup for lunch, and doesn’t think he’ll feel any better for a while. Still, morning found him with a new frame of mind. Enjolras briefly berated himself for being an idiot and decided to move on. Yes, it was embarrassing that he’d ended the night hunched over a toilet, but—as long as he could trust Courfeyrac to keep his mouth shut—there was nothing to do about other than not think about it ever again.

He got up determined, focused and clear-minded, and felt lighter after emptying his stomach. Courfeyrac had spent the night on the couch, and Enjolras took the chance to gather both his friends for some brainstorming and problem solving. It’s been a very productive Saturday, and he feels like himself again. At two in the afternoon, it seems absurd that it was him who let himself drink until he was sick.

“We should get out of here,” Courfeyrac suggests, sitting cross-legged on their coffee-table. He faces Enjolras and Combeferre and makes an impatient gesture. “Working on a Saturday will make you sick, you know. Scientifically proven.”

“Actually,” says Combeferre.

“Empirically proven, then.”

“That was one time and I believe you’d eaten something expired.”

“The point stands! We could go to the Luxembourg, see some people, play with dogs, be in communion with nature. We can get some hot dogs, you know that guy that makes them with onions and pickles and mayo—you all right there, Enj?”

He groans.

“Maybe not Enjolras, then,” Courfeyrac says, sounding way too happy about it. Enjolras glares, but it goes unnoticed. “You and me, then, Ferre, what do you say? I’ll teach you how to ride a bike!”

“I know how to ride a bike,” Combeferre says mildly, but he’s smiling. “You really don’t want to come?”

“I’m good,” Enjolras says. “I’ll try to get some more work done.”

Courfeyrac huffs. “You’re going to die before you’re thirty,” he says, and Combeferre puts a hand on his shoulder, peering at him seriously. “Get some rest. Watch a movie or something. You’re on vacation, you can have a break.”

Enjolras nods, though all three of them know he only turns on the TV for the news, and won’t follow their advice. There are hundreds of things he has saved for reading later that he starts tackling; after a while, he stops to clean the house properly, which they haven’t done since they turned in their final papers. He’s feeling active and useful when his phone chimes. The incoming message shatters his peace like a swift pinprick bursting a balloon.

R [3:24:46]: sorry

He stares. _Sorry_. Just _sorry_. No follow-up, no clarification. What is he supposed to say to that? He stares at the message angrily—reading’s just gone out the window, he thinks, he won’t be able to focus now, and the realization is almost overwhelming, because he’s always been able to overlook Grantaire’s behavior before, even when it frustrated him beyond belief. He huffs and walks around the apartment and thinks furiously on what to reply; _you’re confusing and it’s distracting_ not a valid option.

There’s a lingering sense of guilt from the night before, connected not only to the outcome of the evening but to missing something important. Grantaire had made an effort to be nice to him Thursday. Maybe he was pissed that Enjolras had just come by on barely an invitation; maybe he was irritated Enjolras had forced him to show his sketches; maybe—of this Enjolras is quite sure—he shouldn’t have mentioned the drinking. Not that he wanted to start a fight, but Grantaire had precedent to think he did. He realizes he’s sorry as well.

He could say this on a message.

Yet he finds himself walking toward the door and back a couple of times until finally picking up a light jacket and emerging into sunlight; the day is crisp and he takes an unnecessarily long way to Grantaire’s, walking along the riverbank for no reason before letting the Boulevard Saint-Germain lead him into a narrow street that leads into Grantaire’s much narrower street, where three-story buildings face each other, graffiti on the walls of several storefronts.

And then he’s outside Grantaire’s building, grinding his teeth because he can’t bring himself to ring the intercom. He goes to his friends all the time, he thinks, it’s not a big deal. This is ridiculous. He has a perfect valid reason for being here: it’s only polite to apologize in person. He's just trying to fix things, like an adult, which they are. That’s what he’ll say when he sees Grantaire.

It only occurs to him Feuilly might be there when he rings up. It’s also when he considers that _Grantaire_ might not even be home. He’s taking a step backward when Grantaire’s voice comes through, sleepy and rough.

“Yes?”

“It’s me, um. Enjolras. Can I come up?”

About eight hundred years pass between his question and a silent “Yeah,” and the door opening with a buzzing noise.

Grantaire’s waiting for him upstairs, at the threshold of his apartment. He’s all rumpled, wearing the same loose shirt from last night and gray sweatpants, looking like he just woke up. His curls fall messily over his eyes; he looks at Enjolras like he’s the ghost of Christmas past.

He clears his throat. “I got your message.”

“Were you robbed afterwards?” Grantaire blurts out.

“I was in the area.”

Which could not be any more blatant a lie. He lives not even fifteen minutes away by car but he was never “in the area” before; since Thursday he's been here more than in the past three years of their acquaintance.

Grantaire doesn’t question it but gapes, like he’s watching something wondrous unravel. “Are you really… I mean…”

Frustration twists inside him; anger for not being able to speak the way he wants to, to solve this with the same efficiency and neatness that he solves everything else in his life. “Look,” he breathes out in a rush, “I shouldn’t have said anything, and I swear I didn’t mean to start a fight, and I’d really like if we could not be on each other’s throats all the time, because you know how much the others hate it and—I don’t know, I just think we don’t have to do this all the time. Don’t you?”

Grantaire swallows. “I’m really hung over right now,” he says, which is not an answer to his speech at all.

Me too, he thinks, but says, “Sorry?” and waits for a reaction, which Grantaire doesn’t look like he’s going to give him. In fact, he looks like he’s having a small stroke, and Enjolras feels like a total idiot for coming at all. “I just wanted to say that. Think about it—or not. I’ll see you around, I guess.”

He pivots and starts walking briskly down the corridor, something stuck in his throat, when Grantaire shouts so loudly everyone on the floor must have heard.

“ _COFFEE_!”

He skids to a halt; Grantaire _really_ needs to stop doing that.

“Coffee?”

“I have coffee!” Grantaire’s followed him out into the hallway and stands a few feet away, breathless, for some reason. “Well, I was about to make it. If you’d like some. Feuilly isn’t home. And there’s, um, food of some sort, I’m pretty sure?”

“Any waffles?” he asks lightly.

“No, but there’s still caramel—I can put it in your coffee like some shit out of Starbucks— _or_ ,” he adds quickly, “some local,” gesturing wildly, “family-owned anti-capitalistic coffee shop. Run by feminists.”

He can’t keep from smiling; Grantaire looks oddly frantic. He wasn’t planning on staying long, but—but everyone is always telling him to _relax_ , so he’ll only be following Combeferre’s advice if he allows himself to stick around for a bit.

“In that case."

“Wow, really? Okay.” Grantaire runs a hand through his hair. “Come on in.”

Grantaire gets into a mumbling explanation of Feuilly’s whereabouts; Enjolras listens until the living room presents him with a sight that brings an involuntary gasp out of him.

“Shit,” Grantaire breathes out.

The canvas is large, maybe 3 feet by 4, and he realizes it was there the last time he came, only covered and propped against the wall. Now it stands on easel, dominating the space around it, and seeing Grantaire’s sketches has not prepared him for this. He understands now why he said they were incomplete.

“It was for this class,” Grantaire says weakly.

“Which class?” he shoots back. “You didn’t it mention it last time.”

“It was this practical Art History thing—we had to, um, reinvent a painting.”

He doesn’t know much about art, has never been a priority or an interest, but he recognizes the brushstrokes, the thick swabs of paint, the swirling, maddening style. “This is Van Gogh, right?” he asks tentatively. Grantaire nods. “What did you call it?”

“Starry night over the Seine,” Grantaire half quotes, then gives a self-deprecating laugh. “I know, I know, I thought, who the fuck am I to reinvent Van Gogh, so I went with something else. Just thought I’d finish it, since I started it… Please stop looking.”

Enjolras can’t stop looking. It’s a stretch of Paris near Pont Neuf; in the foreground, a few anchored boats and a couple stroll while the city shines with its modern buildings and lights in the back; heavy bright brushstrokes make up the reflection of stars and lamps in the river. It’s stunning.

He never even wondered what kind of things Grantaire did for college; it’d never occurred to him he spent as much time as the rest of them working during finals. Writing his papers seem to pale in comparison with how much work this must’ve taken. He remembers things he’s said, assumptions he’s made, and realizes Grantaire must think he’s an asshole.

“Why didn’t you hand this in?” he asks softly.

Grantaire scratches the back of his neck. “Too pretentious,” he murmurs. “I mean, Van Gogh, really?”

He doesn’t quite know how to articulate his thoughts—pretentious? It’s beautiful—so he asks, “What did you do instead?”

By now he knows what Grantaire uncomfortable, even embarrassed, looks like, but he’s never seen him blush so profusely and quickly as this. Curiosity sparks inside him.

“Something else extremely pretentious,” Grantaire mutters.

He fidgets with how much he wants to ask—to _see_ —but he closes his hands into fists and bites back the question. He’s not going to press Grantaire again; won’t take the risk of crossing any more lines.

He follows Grantaire to the kitchen; leans against the doorframe while Grantaire moves about.

“So. Van Gogh?”

“What about him?”

“Is he your favorite artist?”

Grantaire considers the question. “Probably. But that’s like choosing a favorite book, you just can’t do it.”

“Sure you can. _The Communist Manifesto_.”

Grantaire freezes with a coffee filter in hand. “That was a… joke,” he guesses, slowly.

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

Grantaire bursts out laughing, “Don’t do humor, oh my god,” and keeps on laughing while he turns on the coffeemaker. It’s a large, semiprofessional one, which he remembers from the Musain; Musichetta must’ve given it to him after they renovated the café.

“You’re laughing,” Enjolras points out.

“Only because you’re awful at it,” he snickers, shooting him a playful look. Then, to Enjolras’s surprise, returns to the topic. “I love Van Gogh, but there’s just no way to choose. The 1800s alone will drive you insane—Romanticism, Impressionism, Realism. I mean, every movement has its geniuses, you know? And don’t get me started on ancient art.”

“Really?” He’s genuinely surprised. “You sound like Jehan. I thought you’d be a Modern Art fan. You know, Cubism and all that stuff.” He waves vaguely. “Duchamp.”

Grantaire peers at him from beneath long lashes. “Please don’t put Cubism and Duchamp in the same sentence.”

He raises his hands. “You know I don’t know much about art. It’s just never been my thing,” he explains. “I’ve never even been to the Louvre.”

Grantaire spins; some coffee powder flies in the air between them.

“You’ve never,” his voice cracks. Enjolras thinks he sees his eye twitch. “You’ve never been to the Louvre.”

Enjolras shrugs.

“Oh my god,” Grantaire whispers, in a tone that suggests Enjolras has just walked into his kitchen and dropped body parts at his feet. “How do you even _manage_ that? Weren’t you dragged when you were at school or something?”

“My parents took me when I was a child, but all I remember are the crowds. I never felt like going again. What’s the point? You can just see reproductions.”

Grantaire whimpers.

“It’s not a big deal,” he says. “And there’s such a long line.”

“You get in line for _an espresso_ , Enjolras, you can get in line for the greatest masterpieces in the _history_ of humankind—why are you laughing?”

“Because you’re so angry.” The coffeemaker splutters noisily, like echoes of Grantaire’s indignation. “It’s nice to be on the other side,” he teases.

“Never been to the Louvre,” Grantaire mutters, taking out a couple of mugs from a cabinet above the sink, “are you kidding me? I’d change your mind about reproductions if I took y—” he cuts himself short.

Enjolras breathes out; this feels like déjà vu.

“How many times have you been?” he asks casually.

“Six.”

“Doesn’t it get boring?”

“Of course not, there’s so much to see,” Grantaire says in a careful tone. “You can’t take it all in all at once.”

He’s not looking over. Enjolras watches as he expertly draws foam from the machine, grabs a bottle of caramel and proceeds to squeeze a generous amount into one of the mugs, then powders some cinnamon over it.

“All right,” he says.

“Hm?”

“I’ll let you prove me wrong. If you want to.”

Grantaire needs a moment to grasp his meaning. “What—really?”

“If you meant it.”

“Of course,” Grantaire says quickly, and hands him his mug.

“All right. When are we g— _oh my god_.” The flavor hits him; it’s rich and warm and silky, and though he felt sick earlier this is everything his empty stomach needed. “ _This_ is a work of art.”

“I _am_ a barista,” Grantaire mutters behind his mug, looking down. Then, even quieter, “When are you free?”

He wonders if there’s a protocol for this, what _this_  means even in his own head. “Are you doing anything tomorrow?” he asks. There’s no need to overthink it. It’s no big deal.

“Not really,” Grantaire says. He takes a sip of his coffee and clears his throat. “They open at nine. I’ll find us some tickets. I know a guy who knows a guy.”

“You say that like there’s a black market for museum tickets.”

“I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you,” Grantaire answers seriously.

“Maybe both of us should give up humor,” he suggests lightly, which earns him a laugh.

He sticks around. Daylight has faded when he finally leaves, mind carefully blank. He doesn’t know why he half jogs his way home, why he climbs the stairs two steps at a time, why, when he lies down to sleep a while later, he feels like running outside again. What he knows is that, when he starts to slumber, colors shimmer before his eyes—bright and dark brushstrokes deftly intertwining, gently overlapping, lovingly wrapping their tendrils around his thoughts.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments warm my cold black heart. Thank you so much for reading!

He closes the door, stares at Enjolras’s used mug and tries not to pass out.

He’s got a _thing_ with Enjolras tomorrow. An— _appointment_. He’s not using the _word_ , nips it as soon as it raises its head, reminds himself that Enjolras is definitely not thinking about tomorrow in any way other than spending a Sunday doing something culturally enriching, and that the fact _he_ ’s the one going along is only circumstantial.

It’s all right, he’s all right. He gets tickets from a TA he’s on friendly terms with and who has a few connections in the museum scene—and _museum scene_ is a phrase he’s definitely not repeating to Enjolras, who will just roll his eyes, heathen that he is; and now there’s a smile playing on his lips, a dazed smile that sticks with him as he washes his mug and Enjolras’s, and the water is freezing cold but he only realizes when he turns off the faucet and he’s shaking—he’s fine, he’s happy, it’s _fine_ —Enjolras will come pick him up tomorrow, he’ll drive them—he puts the mugs to dry, he’s still shaking. He needs a drink.

And as he pours it occurs to him he doesn’t remember the last time he didn’t have a flask in his pocket that he could take out every hour or so; it occurs to him this might be a big problem. He breathes. He’s fine, he’ll be fine, it’s just—how long will they take? The whole morning, surely, and a lot of effort goes into not calling Éponine right then and there and babbling everything to her. He’s desperate to hear her say he needs to get over himself and then over Enjolras, because they’re both idiots in their own way, and why does she even bother with their drama? It would be almost as relaxing as downing half a bottle of wine, he thinks, and he realizes he _can_ call—if he needs to, if he really needs to, he can call her. The idea makes it easier both to breathe and to resist the urge to pick up his phone, and he sits on the couch and stares at the opposite wall, the colors from his painting intruding in his peripheral view, and tries to calm his mind now that his heartbeat is back at regular speed.

He won’t call Éponine. He’s sure, in an instinctive way, that telling anyone will break whatever mysterious inclinations have been driving Enjolras to seek him out. Enjolras hasn’t told anyone. For starters, if any of them knew, Grantaire would be getting messages by now, but mostly he figures Enjolras either doesn’t care enough to mention, doesn’t think it’s anything _worth_ mentioning, or doesn’t want them to know, and it hurts a little, but he gets it: why would Enjolras advertise he’s wasting time with him? The point is (and he makes the point over and over to himself, picking nervously at a loose thread in the fabric), the point is, if he says something Enjolras will surely find out—there are no secrets that don’t eventually come out, a fact he doesn’t like to think about—and that’ll be the end of evening visits, of laughing at his stupid quips, of groaning with appreciation as he sips the coffee Grantaire made for him, of licking caramel off his lips…

And it’s amazing how his previous fears flee, all of a sudden, and give way to a sudden and overwhelming lust.

“ _Stop_.” He presses a cushion against his face, breathes in a dusty scent. “Don’t.”

He was terrified _just_ now, on the brink of a panic attack; can he go back to that, please? He’s seeing Enjolras tomorrow, he can’t think about him like that, it’s wrong and Grantaire’s disgusting and _no_ , remembering the sound Enjolras made when he bit into those waffles is not helping at all, he’ll think about other things, Non Sexual Things, like clogged toilets and papier-mâché and Marius Pontmercy—he groans and his groan stretches into something else, body leaning against the back of the couch, where—where Enjolras sat, and Grantaire sat there by his side and fuck, _fuck_ , it’s not like he hasn’t done this before, he always feels horrible but so, so good at the same time, and with this kind of mental image—Enjolras leaning back, his bare throat, his mouth, his tongue wetting his red, full lips—it’s impossible not to; and it’s good that Feuilly isn’t home, Grantaire hopes he won’t arrive while he’s on their couch with his fly open, soft keening noises coming from the back of his throat, Enjolras a blinding presence in his mind; his grip rough, his breathing ragged—close enough to touch, he thinks desperately—Enjolras—he would’ve, oh, he would’ve done _anything_ —Enjolras, Enjolras, _Enjolras_.

The sound of his heavy breathing fills the living room. He’s fine. He’ll be fine. It’s just going to be a long night.

*

“Going out?” Combeferre asks from behind a book.

It’s a crisp spring morning, and a tentative warmth is coming in from window, as if the day hasn’t decided yet where it stands. The question is perfectly innocent, and Enjolras has a perfectly innocent answer for it.

“Taking your advice,” he says. “Going for a walk.” And because he has nothing to hide, he adds faintly, “I might go to a museum.”

“That’s nice,” Combeferre says.

There’s no reason for feeling guilty when he hasn’t lied.

*

“Are you laughing alone in the street?” asks a familiar voice, and Grantaire yelps.

He had been, in fact. After standing in front of his building for twelve minutes—not that he was obsessively checking his phone—with enough alcohol in his system to, he hopes, get him through the day, he tried to forget how jittery and hopeful and terrified about being hopeful he felt by thinking about what to do if Enjolras did actually show up. He knows Enjolras will enjoy the French paintings and sculptures, but Grantaire is dying to give him a tour of the Greek and Roman collections, and that lead to the thought they’ll probably pass through the Gallery of Apollo—and that’s when Enjolras arrived, of course.

Enjolras has his head half out the car. He looks fresh and well-rested and perfectly put together, and his heart, treacherous thing that it is, acts like he’s run a hundred miles.

He smoothes imaginary wrinkles with a hand and smiles; tells Enjolras smoothly, “Thought of a funny joke,” and gets in the car.

This is the fourth time he’s been in Enjolras’s car. One time he was unconscious; the others he rode in the back, not as out of it but still drunk enough to annoy Enjolras. This is the first time he’s sat at the passenger’s seat, the first time he and Enjolras are going somewhere alone. He doesn’t manage to stop his brain from filling in the blanks of a half-formed fantasy with the speed of light—having Enjolras pick him up at college or at the gym or at his apartment; getting in, greeting him with a kiss, dropping casual touches on the way. It’s the sort of thing always on the back of his mind, always ready to surface at the drop of a hat. He’s used to letting it simmer in a corner of his brain while the rest of it is engaged in living; and he allows it to rest there now, warm and familiar.

“So,” Enjolras says after a few moments of silent driving. “Do you have a plan?”

“Of course I have a plan,” he huffs, “what do you take me for, someone’s who’s never been to one of the most famous museums in the world?” Enjolras snorts quietly. “There are four floors and not enough time, so here’s what we’re doing,” he says, and begins explaining.  

Talking is good; rambling like this is distracting, and that’s just what he needs now, a distraction from the way he feels like crawling out of his own skin. If he stops talking this coat of confidence he’s put on might vanish into thin air—and he suspects Enjolras might be fed up with him already but he only murmurs assent and puts in a word here and there, and Grantaire doesn’t know how to interpret this strange version of him. Maybe he’s in an inexplicably good mood and decided to humor Grantaire, or maybe he’s in a bad mood because he couldn’t find a way to get out of this even after going home and coming to his senses, and doesn’t want to snap at him. Both options make him anxious to the point he almost wishes Enjolras was angry.

But Enjolras is not, apparently, so he keeps talking right up to the Louvre.

*

He can’t find it in him to interrupt the flow of words pouring out of Grantaire. Grantaire’s tirades are nothing new, but as they move inside and the first pieces of artwork greet them, he realizes this is different from the drunken attacks he’s used to—not a rant, but a presentation, focused and precise, words he never thought he’d associate with Grantaire. Grantaire’s tour seems like a good plan and he likes he doesn’t have to worry about it. They are both visitors, but he realizes quickly Grantaire feels at home.

Grantaire is—he is intelligent. Enjolras knows this, but Grantaire’s intelligence has always revealed itself wrapped in hostility, in the form of arguments that pierced his own or insights that are often uncomfortable, cynical or dark: for every principle Enjolras defends, an exception; for every flight of hope, the leaden weight of reality. Not here. Grantaire weaves between sculptures and talks about art with warmth and the certainty of familiarity, drawing references from some repository of knowledge that seems vast and varied—history, mythology, anthropology, all blending in casually; quotes things he doesn’t recognize (“Ah! They sailed together as it were on the same vessel of life!”, he whispers. “Who did?” he asks; “Never mind, let’s move on”); tells stories about artists the way he might joke about friends in a bar, points out the brushstrokes in this painting or the curves in that sculpture as if he sees them through lenses Enjolras lacks. He does; he lets himself be taught.

“This is why a picture isn’t worth shit, okay, look at the marble here,” Grantaire says, “you can feel the _goddamn wind on her dress_ , how fucking brilliant is that?”

“She has no head,” he points out, mostly to see Grantaire inhale sharply.

“Yeah, sorry about that, it’s just that she was in a hundred and eighteen pieces when they found her after an _earthquake_ —”

“You know how many _pieces_ she was in,” he says slowly, an eyebrow raised.

Grantaire crosses his arms. “So?”

“You’re a nerd,” Enjolras states, and hears Grantaire huff as he moves along.

Grantaire talks and talks and Enjolras realizes he has to actively listen to keep up with the onslaught of information. Grantaire is intelligent—not only that, he is _passionate_. He doesn’t know how to process this.

He doesn’t stay silent, of course—he wouldn’t know how to. He might not know art, but he’s hardly uneducated. They walk and a thousand questions spark in his mind, and as he sees Grantaire answer one after another he makes them more and more complex, then petty and unnecessary, and laughs when Grantaire grumbles and answers anyway.

Occasionally he even recognizes something.

“ _Liberty leading the people_ ,” he says as people mill about around them. “I like this one.”

Grantaire makes a humming noise, mutters something that sounds like “I know,” and stays quiet, for once, while he observes.

They move from one room to the next, and he’s lost track of time a while ago; he’s been to museums before, of course, but finds his usual method of visiting doesn’t work here. Grantaire doesn’t let him spend more than a few seconds reading the labels, quickly disabuses him of the idea they’re going to see everything, and leads him without ever getting lost.

He discovers he likes the Romantics, that they disagree on the Flemish but agree on the Baroque and the Mona Lisa (“—sort of overrated?” “Fuck, Enjolras, lower your voice, people are going to beat us to death with their cameras”). He was never particularly attuned to aesthetics, but Grantaire listens to his opinions as if they’re as valid as his own. He takes his interest as mocking, at first, because why would Grantaire care to know what he thinks? He has nothing but derision for Enjolras’s beliefs. Yet as the hours pass and no scathing comment on his ignorance is forthcoming, he admits that maybe what he knows about Grantaire doesn’t scratch the surface—and so he talks, as well, and before long he’s bristling at crowns and diadems and pointing out how much money was spent on buildings such as these as the people starved, and Grantaire is shooting him hesitant looks.

“What?” he asks.

“Don’t think it’s beautiful?” Grantaire asks, making a gesture to encompass the gallery they’re at. “I mean, sure, it’s a bit Baroque, but… come on.”

They’re surrounded by gold; giant oil paintings look down on them from the ceiling and high-relief figures burst from the walls. It’s so opulent and wasteful—a symbol of everything he stands against.

“Sure,” Grantaire says after he points this out, “but it’s also, I mean, it's  _art_. It’s what makes... It’s the only thing that survives. After people are gone, this kind of thing—” he makes incoherent gestures; for the first time since they got here, seeming unable to speak.

Enjolras frowns. “So you think that just because it’s beautiful it’s worth more than the people who were starving as this was being buil—”

“No,” Grantaire cuts him sharply, “but it’s worth _something_ , and people should appreciate it.” 

“Next you’ll want to take me to Versailles,” he sneers.

Grantaire scratches the back of his neck, eyes flicking away. His silence seems overwhelming, compared to how he was talking just now, and Enjolras regrets ever starting the subject. Some things he and Grantaire just can’t discuss.  

“Where to next?” he asks, overly casual.

“Food?” Grantaire suggests hoarsely.

There are so many people inside he’s sweating; twice now Grantaire’s moved too fast and Enjolras almost lost him in the crowd. So when Grantaire swivels, Enjolras instinctively grabs his forearm. Grantaire’s eyes drop, long eyelashes lowered toward his cheeks. Enjolras releases him immediately.

“Don’t wander off.”

Grantaire’s reply is almost lost in the noise. “Come on.”

They sit at a café, order, and eat without speaking. He observes; Grantaire looks tired and uncomfortable, and Enjolras has the irrational desire to force him to eat properly—he looks ill, playing with his straw distractedly, looking away, all his excitement drained, and he regrets speaking earlier. Grantaire's free hand is posed on the table, Enjolras notices. It’s shaking slightly.

Something drops in the pit of his stomach.

Grantaire follows his gaze and pulls back the hand over the table like he’s been burned. “We, um, covered most of it,” he says quickly. Enjolras can feel his leg twitching under the table.

Suddenly, he’s angry. The emotion originates from somewhere in his stomach and spreads, overwhelming and unfamiliar, climbing up his throat and settling into a knot there. He’s not angry at _Grantaire_ , but he doesn’t know what’s he’s angry at, either, only that there is something very wrong that he can’t fix, and for some inexplicable reason he finds he’s angry at himself, too.

Grantaire is looking at him, eyes wary and deeply miserable, as if scrutinizing Enjolras for something unfathomable.

“Oh,” he says, eventually, swallowing hard. “All right. Are we going?”

Before long they're outside; Grantaire is all contained movement, shuffling and scratching his arms and his neck. Enjolras knows he noticed him looking. They both know.

He has things he wants to say and they all get stuck in his throat.

“I can drop you off,” he says, a question and an offer.

“What? Oh, no, I’ll just—I have somewhere to go.” Grantaire isn’t meeting his eyes, and he doesn’t ask.  

“Grantaire,” he calls urgently, when Grantaire's already half turned. “Thanks.” And it's completely inadequate, he’ll think about it for the rest of the day.

Grantaire smiles thinly, giving a few steps backwards, and raises a hand. “See you around,” turns and moves at a brisk pace.

Enjolras watches him until he turns a corner, then gets into his car and sits until he’s convinced himself following is a terrible idea.

*

It’s fine. He's fine. It’s what he expected. There’s nothing to be upset about; in fact, there’s comfort in the inevitable.

He’s not shaking anymore; he took care of that six shots ago.

His phone rings, and he doesn’t bother checking the caller. “Yeah.”

A beat, then Bahorel’s voice comes from the other side. “Hey. You busy?”

It’s four in the afternoon, he’s in a bar getting shitfaced. “Sort of.”

“We’re at your place,” Bahorel says. “Me, Feuilly and the girls—our girls, not the _girls_.”

“Got it. That’s nice.” There’s one thing he’s better at than lying, and that’s speaking like he’s sober. It’s so natural he almost _feels_ sober. 

“Are you coming by? We were going to wait for you.”

“Don’t,” he says quickly, and tries to laugh. It comes out strangely, he can tell. “I’ll be a while yet. Have fun. See you tomorrow.”

“Are you s—”

He hangs up.

Not even a full minute passes before his phone rings again. This time, he checks; Bahorel must’ve called her right away. He should’ve known he can’t fool Bahorel. The man’s seen him wasted too many times.

“Po _nine_ ,” he drawls.

Her voice is strong, no-nonsense, like her. “Where are you?”

“Drinking,” he says, because they’ve already figured it out.

“Where?”

“Does it matter? I’m fine. I _am_ ,” he adds, when she huffs loudly, “so don’t worry.”

“What happened?” she asks point-blank.

“Nothing.”

“Feuilly had to drag you home Friday, now you’re drinking on a Sunday afternoon.”

“It’s sort of my thing,” he jokes, but hears a sigh on the other end of the line.

“Tell me where you are, or I’ll start making the circuit until I find you. And you know I will find you. I’ll have Parnasse drive me around the whole city.”

“Fuck’s sake,” he breathes out, glass hitting the counter with a thump. “Can’t I get drunk anymore?”

He should know he won’t scare off Éponine with a rough tone. “Not when there’s something wrong,” she says.

He laughs. Everything’s wrong and it’s been for a long time; the circumstances may have shifted a little, but the essentials are still the same. He’s looking at one of his problems now; he was staring into the other’s eyes earlier. He won’t say this to Éponine, but he’s never had to.

“If I go home, will you leave me the fuck alone?”

He wanted to get drunk, but he can do it with company, if it soothes their minds. That way, he’ll have to bear the look on their faces too, feel their worry and their sympathy, consider how much they misplaced their affections. It’ll be another thorn at his side, and it says a lot about how fucked he is in the head that the prospect is enticing, like sticking a finger in an open wound just to see how much it hurts.

“Come to my place,” Éponine says. It’s not a suggestion, and he doesn’t resist.

*

“We should have more parties here,” Courfeyrac is saying when he walks in, “you guys have the best space of all of us and your couch is so _comfy_ —”

“Have you been evicted?” Enjolras says as way of greeting. “Why are you always here?”

Combeferre looks startled by his outburst; Courfeyrac has legs thrown over his lap and narrows his eyes at Enjolras.

“Did you come back from your relaxing promenade more stressed out than before?”

“No one’s having a party here!” he shouts as he crosses the room.

“Not with that attitude!” Courfeyrac yells after him.

He receives a group text not thirty seconds after closing his bedroom door.

Courf [2:23:56]: PARTY AT ENJ TONIGHT HE SAYS TO BRING BOOZE AND BOARD GAMES

*

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he warns before Éponine can get a word in.

She raises an eyebrow. “Like I give a shit about your lonely soul, you’re here to listen to _me_ ,” she says, and pulls him inside roughly.

Grantaire laughs, because that’s _such_ a lie—she’s trying to make him feel better, or at least less guilty or obsessed, and he hates that it works a little. He takes a cursory glance of her apartment: no Montparnasse in sight. Small blessings still exist.

Éponine drags him into her room, separated by a thin fake wall from the living room, which morphs into a small kitchen. He’s amazed a person can live in such a minuscule space, even more so that Éponine kept her sister sleeping on her couch for a year before Azelma went to college, and paid everything for her with what she makes at the firm she interns at (doing things which go way over his head, involving numbers and businesses and the kind of things practical people deal with). She’s got the same view as Grantaire’s on cleaning things, but her room’s tidy enough, and they plop down on the bed; him sitting against the headboard, her against the wall, his feet over her lap.

“Guess who was here today?” she starts.

“Your boyfriend?”

“Did you lose your sense of humor with your sobriety?” she hisses, leaning to slap him lightly on the head.

It’s his turn to raise an eyebrow. “What do you call him, then?”

“Montparnasse, and he’s not my boyfriend, as you very well know. Can we go back to the question? It was Marius,” she answers it herself.

He blinks. “Why?”

“He sent a message inviting me to the movies with _him and Cosette_ later and yes, I know, you can shut your mouth now—”

It’s good to laugh; Grantaire will be extra nice to Marius next time he sees him. “What did you say?”

“That I couldn’t, obviously. That I was sick.”

“You could’ve just said you were going out with Parnasse.”

“Yeah, and then he’d invite us _both_ , and they’d probably bring it up at some point and Parnasse would know I lied,” she groans. “It’d be a mess, so I just said I was sick. So, naturally, half an hour later he’s here.”

“Wow,” Grantaire says. He likes spending time with Éponine; though the objects of their unrequited affections are polar opposites, they each have their own tiny ways of making them miserable. “And?”

“ _And_  he seemed to think I wanted company! And you know what Marius loves to talk about.”

“You’re joking.”

“He went on about her for twenty minutes,” she says, bursting into a hysterical laugh. “Including about how much Cosette wants to be friends, can you believe it? Then I pretended I was falling asleep because of some drugs and he left.”

“Hm,” he murmurs. “That’s your story? Not very impressive.”

“Oh? You’ve got something better?”

And this is something he doesn’t want to touch at all, so he says, carefully, “I thought you said you were over Marius.”

“Well.”

“Your exact words were, ‘I don’t care if they get married tomorrow’.”

Éponine scowls and grumbles, “I didn’t think you remembered that.”

Grantaire wishes he could fix this for her, but if there’s anyone who understands the futility of trying to fight your feelings, it’s him. And yet, it doesn’t have to be the same for her—he doesn’t want it to be, and why should it? They’re very different people. Éponine is strong.

“I think,” he says, “you like Parnasse more than you believe.”

She laughs. “What?”

“I’m serious. You keep saying you two have a casual agreement, but if you let go of Marius, you might find you like reality the Parnasse more than your dreams of Marius.”

“Is this a new thing? Do you get drunk and turn into Freud now?”

He shushes her, hitting her lightly with a foot. “You fell for Marius when you were in a really shitty situation. He was kind to you, because that’s what Marius does, and the fact he came here is proof—”

She falls sideways and clings to his leg like an octopus. “It _was_ nice of him to come.”

“Yes. But maybe you’re still clinging to the idea of being taken care of. Would you really want Marius? Think about it, come on. Just as he drove you insane being oblivious about you being madly in love with him, he’d probably drive you insane with a thousand other things later.”

She’s grinning wickedly, craning her head to look up at him. “You _are_ listening to the words coming out of your mouth, right?”

“I just think,” he continues, undeterred, “that you need to let go of Ashley, Scarlett.”

“I _am_ a movie heroine,” she sighs happily.

“That wasn’t the lesson I was trying to impart. Also, you and Parnasse are good for each other.” He shivers theatrically. “Can’t believe I just said that.”

“You almost had a coronary the first time I showed up with him at the café.”

“Back then I thought he was a no-good future con who didn’t care for you. Now I just think he’s a no-good future con.”

She punches him on the leg. “And this is the man you recommend to me?”

“Yes,” he says, running a hand through her hair, “because you don’t need anyone to take care of you.”

And he will never mention the way her eyes brighten at that. They stay silent for a few moments, mulling over their own issues, until Éponine says, voice low and awfully gentle, “What’s up with _you_?”

He’s considering the pros and cons of revealing something when both their phones chime at the same moment.

“What—oh. Damn it, Courf.” She sits up. “We shouldn't go. We should just drink here alone and think of our emotional well-being for once.”

They share a resigned look.

“That is what we _should_ do,” he agrees.

*

He’s thinking no one’s going to bother coming to their house on a Sunday when the door, naturally unlocked to give Courfeyrac free passage whenever desired, opens so fast it rattles the windows. 

“Did someone say board games?” Bossuet shouts.

Courfeyrac whoops. “I knew I could count on you, my man! Sit, sit, hello Chetta, you look lovely tonight.”

“She always looks lovely,” Joly waves a finger at him, “watch your mouth!”

That earns him a kiss. Musichetta gives a more innocent one to Combeferre and then frowns at Enjolras. “I changed my shift to be here, I was promised fun times. There are no laptops in a party.”

“I didn’t really summon a party,” Enjolras says.

“We _know_ ,” the three newcomers say at once. “Still,” Musichetta adds, “it’s happening. So you better close that thing.”

He obeys, because you don’t argue with the person who makes your coffee (especially if that person is Musichetta). Jehan arrives next, greets them all cheerfully, tells Enjolras it was a wonderful idea and laughs at the expression he makes; then sits between Courfeyrac and Combeferre on the floor, and the six of them start a game of Cluedo, the board on the coffee table. 

“Aren’t we a little old for this?” he wonders.

“Oh, I’m so _sorry_ ,” Courfeyrac enunciates, dripping sarcasm. “Everyone, Enjolras is too old for board games! Quick, let’s take out our cigars and start discussing the real estate market!”

“This is your idea of adulthood?” he asks.

“You’re not getting out of Monopoly,” Courfeyrac warns, but Enjolras is content to sit and watch, for now.

It’s nice. Despite complaining, he doesn’t know what he would’ve done with his night, other than mull over things he doesn’t particularly want to think about.

Marius and Cosette come by, apparently changing their plans especially due to Enjolras’s request, and occupy a single chair on the other side of the room, and eventually Feuilly and Bahorel arrive together amidst some cheers, settling around the table.

“Spill,” Jehan demands of them, and Enjolras was not aware there was something to spill, but apparently the both of them are having an interesting week; and so between plays there is laughter, and someone’s brought beer, and Enjolras has been told it’s only polite of him – “as host” – to order some pizza.

By then Cluedo is won by Combeferre, who reveals unsuspected talents for investigation, and everyone (“Yes, Enjolras, you too”) is recruited for Monopoly. He puts up the expected amount of resistance and is told to shut up and pretend it’s 1991.

“Why 1991?” he asks.

“The Soviet Union has fallen,” Courfeyrac explains seriously. “It’s a rich man’s world. The capitalist pigs are coming for your government proprieties, Enjolras, and you’re the only one who can save them, for when the people’s government returns victorious.”

“The Russians want,” he leans over the board, “the Rue d’Aviau, in Bordeaux?”

“Use your imagination,” Courfeyrac tells him. “It’s only the Rue d’Aviau in the official documents. So the communists won’t _know_.”

“Are we roleplaying?” Joly pipes up. “I want a backstory too!”

Courfeyrac proceeds to create one for everyone, and as they get progressively wilder (Cosette is a Chinese spy; Bossuet has ties with the mafia), he does his best to ignore the way his stomach has lurched every time the door opened. And then it does again; all head turn as Éponine and Grantaire saunter in, each carrying two boxes of pizza.

“Hello, children!” Grantaire exclaims. He’s flushed, smiling widely. His eyes catch Enjolras’s only for a second before moving on. “We come bearing food!”

“Have you been waiting until the pizza man arrived to nick it off his hands and take all the credit?” Joly asks.

“You greatly overestimate how much we care,” Éponine says.

“Ponine, you’re feeling better?” Marius asks quickly. He and Cosette are on the floor now, but still on top of each other, and engage her in conversation.

Enjolras isn’t paying attention. Grantaire has set the pizzas on the dinner table and he finds himself tracking his movements for no discernible reason.

“Food!” someone yells, and there’s a rush for the table; Grantaire does not look at him even when they stand on opposites sides of it.

“We almost thought you weren’t coming!” Jehan says when they’re settling down again, pulling Grantaire down on the floor beside him.

He settles on Jehan’s other side and hears Grantaire laugh.

“Since our plans involved alcohol, they were easily transferable,” and when Jehan cringes, Grantaire leans in to kiss him noisily on the cheek.

He suddenly wants to get in a fight with Grantaire so badly the only reason he doesn’t say one of the dozen scathing comments on the tip of his tongue is because Éponine screeches, silencing the whole room.

“How can you _not_ understand this? Do I have to spell it out for you?”

She’s sitting beside Marius, who freezes, and Cosette, on his lap, her face as blank as Enjolras has ever seen it.

“Éponine,” she tries.

“No, don’t—this is not your fault, I know, all right? I know. But I also know you’re not oblivious, so you could at least _talk_ to him—”

Her voice breaks. Grantaire leans over and places a hand around her waist.

“Ep,” he calls softly.

“I want us to be friends,” Cosette says.

And as he looks around and sees sympathy on his friends’ faces, Enjolras thinks this is one more thing he’s missed—though perhaps he gets it by the time Éponine answers, “I don’t want to be yours.”

There’s a collective intake of air. Nobody moves for a long, uncomfortable moment, then Cosette nods.

“I understand,” she says quietly.

“Ponine,” Marius gasps.

But Éponine’s not looking at him. She disentangles herself gently from Grantaire, murmurs something at his ear, and leaves amid complete silence. Grantaire looks down after the door closes.

Combeferre is the one to break the tension. “You guys all right?”

“Yes, thank you,” Cosette answers gently, then turns to say something at her boyfriend’s ear. Marius looks shell-shocked.

Grantaire takes the chance to turn around and say, with fake cheer, “Right! What do you say we move on?”

There are murmurs of agreement and they start the game, amid a general effort to pick up the conversation and veer it towards safer topics.

“Will she be all right?” Jehan asks Grantaire at one point, when Bossuet is haggling with his girlfriend over a building. Enjolras is not eavesdropping, but they’re right beside him. He can’t help listening.

“I’ll go to her place later,” Grantaire replies, and takes a gulp of his beer. It’s his fourth since he arrived.

Combeferre’s going away for a few days to visit his mother, and that sparks the topic of who’s going to see their families (Enjolras stays quiet; so do Marius and Grantaire), who’s travelling (no one—they’re all either too poor or too busy, or both), and, inevitably, someone asks Enjolras about his plans.

“Staying here,” he says. “Too much to do.” Which isn’t the main reason, but it’s no lie either.

“Enjolras can’t even take the morning off,” Courfeyrac laughs. He feels himself go cold. “He tried having a relaxing day and came back even more pissed off.”

There are laughs; is he imagining the way Grantaire has gone very still? Enjolras can still see from the corner of his eye when he takes a long gulp from another beer.

You should say something, part of his brain whisper. Yet, he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what to do, and feels as though he is watching something unravel he can’t control, at the center of which is him and Grantaire.

Someone asks him about the rally, and he stirs as if from a troubled sleep. “Yeah, it’s going great,” he says, a note of excitement slipping in. “Ferre and I have been talking with some other groups around the city campuses, and they’re really excited to do something major—simultaneous events all around the city, in remembrance of previous violence but also—”

Grantaire scoffs. It takes a millisecond for him to be filled with the annoyance Grantaire so often brings out of him. It is very different from whatever he felt at the museum and it drives him to ask, in a clipped tone, “Do you have something to say?”

Grantaire looks down and pointedly not at him. “Why would I have something to say?”

And he should let it go, he knows, they don’t need another scene tonight, but he’s been waiting for this since Grantaire walked in and didn’t spare him a look—as if Enjolras doesn’t deserve even a nod after today, as if they’re the same as they ever were, as if his efforts have meant nothing at all. Enjolras feels petty and injured, and sounds cold even to his own ears.

“You always have something to say when you drink.”

Grantaire finally, finally turns around, right arm landing on the couch. His eyes are rimmed red, his mouth contorted in a grimace. You smiled at me this morning, Enjolras thinks fleetingly.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Grantaire all but snarls. “I thought I’d made pretty clear what I think of your rally, but if you want a repeat, I’m game.”

“Enj,” someone says beside him. Combeferre.

His eyes are locked with Grantaire’s, anger rising in him like sickness. He barely even notices Jehan between them.

“What, Enjolras?” Grantaire presses. “I’d love to _piss you off_ even more.”

He flinches; with a word, they’re pulled into a space of their own, a conversation on the sidelines. He knows and Grantaire knows, yet he feels they’re still not speaking the same language, that there is that disconnect that perhaps they are doomed to always have between them. Enjolras gets up and gives a few steps without direction.

“I don’t want to do this,” he says.

“Oh, now you don’t?” Grantaire sneers. “Never seen you back away before. Come on, you brought it up.” He hears a rustle; Grantaire is getting up as well. “Next time just tell Courf not to invite me since I’m such bad company all the time—”

“That’s not what I _said_ ,” he hisses.

He’s not bad company. Enjolras learned that today—before, even—and somehow they’ve given two steps back already. He doesn’t know how to reconcile these two halves of Grantaire or the different ways he makes Enjolras feel. They both seem to turn into other people depending on the circumstances, and it’s so different from every other friendship he has. He turns to Grantaire as if he can impress his thoughts and his confusion with a look.

Of course, it doesn’t work like that; Grantaire doesn’t look appeased. “Oh? Just when I drink, then? Everyone else is drinking.”

“You already _arrived_ drunk,” he snaps.

Grantaire breathes out. His voice is venomous. “What it is with you how I _fucking_ _arrive_?”

“Don’t you have to work tomorrow?” he asks. That’s not the point, it’s so not the point, but it’s the first that comes up.

Grantaire snorts. “So does everyone else, Enjolras—oh, wait, not everyone. You’ve got more important things to do than making money, right? You can save the world and just send home for that, even if you never visit. Must be nice.”

(There are other people around them, he thinks as in a dream. But they’re not important. They’re not even breathing. Neither is he.)

“Don’t,” he warns.

“What? You can say whatever the hell you want, but I can’t?”

He realizes then that this is the first time he’s ever seen Grantaire truly angry. This is the first time Grantaire is not holding back. This is the first time he’s saying what he really thinks of Enjolras—and the idea leaves him lightheaded, because if Grantaire was hiding his _real_ feelings until now, he probably doesn’t want to know them.

“It’s none of your business how I get money,” he snaps. “It’s got nothing to do with anything!”

“Maybe,” and Grantaire’s screaming now, “ _maybe_ it has to do with everything, because if you had to scrape to get by you’d understand how normal people live and maybe then you’d get a chance to help them like you claim to want to do, but you don’t, do you? You have no idea, and that’s why you have no fucking chance of accomplishing anything _real_ —”

“At least I’m trying to help someone,” Enjolras shouts back. “You can’t even help _yourself_!”

Grantaire lets out a breath as if he’s been shot. He licks his lips slowly. “Oh?”

Enjolras opens and closes his hands, nails digging into his palms. If he was any closer, he might have them on Grantaire. He wants to shake him, figure him out, tear out of him everything he really thinks.

“You disagree?” he asks, with a calm he’s not feeling.

It seems to enrage Grantaire even further. His breathing is ragged; he looks like he wants his hands around Enjolras’s neck. He looks wrecked.

“What is it exactly,” Grantaire says slowly, “that I need help with?”

(Surely, he thinks, someone is going to stop this. Someone is going to stop them. But no one speaks up.)

“Do you need me to say it?” he asks, disbelieving. “Do you _want_ me to say it?”

“Yeah,” Grantaire says, like he’s just considered it, like they’re just having a chat and he’s been offered the choice of a cup of tea. “Yeah, why not? Say it.”

“No,” he says.

“ _No_?”

(This needs to end, he thinks, and he knows how. He’s not good at relationships, but he knows how to cut a conversation short; knows how to cut people, and now he's enraged at everyone around them, everyone letting these words come out of his mouth.)

“You know what you are,” he says. “Are you such a coward that you need me to admit it for you?”

Grantaire is shaking—like he was earlier today, only he’s had plenty to drink. It dawns on him that's he's the one making Grantaire tremble, making him so angry, and perhaps something else, that he seems ready to collapse. He feels sick.

"No," Grantaire whispers, sidestepping the others to leave the apartment without coming anywhere near him.

He doesn’t see which of his friends grabs his hand and leads him inside.

*

He walks home. It’s drizzling, the day is waning, and when he pushes the front door of his building, the sky is the unimaginative gray of rainclouds, turning into darker gray, then slowly into black.

Feuilly hasn’t followed him. Good. He unlocks the door, sticks the key in on the inside, and takes off his coat. There are four unread messages in his phone—Bahorel ( _feuilly said you’d want some space, let us know if u need us_ ), Jehan ( _are you okay? We love you!_ ), Éponine ( _i heard. want me to come over?_ ) and, surprisingly, Combeferre ( _he doesn’t mean it how you think_ ). He ignores the last one and sends a quick _I’m fine_ to the others, then passes paints and beer cans on the way to his room, takes his shoes off and kicks them to a corner, sits on the bed and glances at the mess facing him.

There are coats on hooks on the walls, shirts and pants over the only chair and three canvases propped up against the dresser, an antiquated thing that, as everything else in the apartment, came with it when they rented it. Books lie on the floor and peak out from under the bed. On the walls, slips of paper with quotes from favorite books and poems and photographs of his friends are glued with scotch tape. On the bedside table, his sketchbook is open to the page Enjolras last turned.

He’s crying like a child.

This is stupid, he thinks, it was nothing you didn’t know. You always knew he sees you for what you are, that they all do, so why are you crying, why are you surprised, you knew, you were ready for this. Only he wasn’t. The first time Enjolras acknowledged it, beyond the occasional gripe about the hour and how much he’s already had, beyond a disapproving look when he pulls out a bottle or a flask in the middle of the day. The first time he says something Grantaire has known for a long time and he breaks down.

He curls up on the bed and waits until his breathing evens out. He wants to drink until he passes out, but for once he might not have to. He feels spent already; light and heavy all at once. He wants to sleep for a hundred years, or for a full night—might actually do it, tonight.

A minute or an hour later, there’s a soft chime from his back pocket.

He shivers and considers ignoring it. But what if they’re worrying? What if someone comes around to check on him? He pulls out the phone out and looks at the screen. And part of him knew, he thinks, part of him couldn’t just leave it alone. Of course it’s him. And of course, he thinks, he will read whatever it is, because it doesn’t matter how much it’ll hurt, he’ll take anything he’s given.

Apollo [9:47:33]: If I stop by, will you let me in?

He could’ve slept through it; he might’ve woken up feeling better. But now there’s a thrumming in his veins, a pounding in his head—even now, even after this shitstorm of an evening, his heart is skipping at the idea of seeing him. If he types and sends a single word back— _don’t_ —the only reason is that he can’t bear the thought of Enjolras seeing him like this, because he knows that, if Enjolras showed up, he would open the door.

He places his head against the pillow, closes his eyes again. This is unhealthy, he thinks, falling asleep. But so is drinking, and old habits die hard. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and gentlemen if you look to your right you can see me bullshitting my way around descriptions of places I've never been to! Also one of the works I mentioned is not even in the Louvre now but shhh, I'm taking a poetic license. Anyway, things get more interesting from here on, imo, so if you stuck with me so far, I hope you like the next chapters!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [AGGRESSIVELY THANKS YOU FOR READING]

He opens his eyes and clutches the sheets with a hitched breath.

Courfeyrac is sitting on a chair next to the bed, legs stretched, with one foot over the other, and fingers intertwined on his lap. It’s unclear how long he’s been watching Enjolras sleep; he gives Enjolras a little nod.

“How long have you _been_ here?”

“A couple of hours.” 

“ _Why_?”

“I need to talk to you. About,” a vague gesture, “things.”

He flirts with the idea of turning the other way and just going back to sleep. But not only is Courfeyrac not going to be dissuaded, as much as Enjolras doesn’t want to talk about what he’s surely here to talk about, it would be hypocritical of him to avoid the conversation. So he pushes the covers away and sits on the bed, blinking away remains of a restless sleep.

“You couldn’t talk to me,” he grumbles, “I don’t know, during breakfast, like a human being?”

“No. It had to be now.”

Courfeyrac is oddly subdued, and his reticence is more unnerving than any scolding could be. Something itches under his skin.

“Is everything okay?” he asks warily. “Is everyone…?”

Courfeyrac takes a second to understand, then says off-handedly, “Yeah, yeah, don’t worry,” and Enjolras breathes again. “I just wanted to make sure Ferre wasn’t around when we talked.”

Enjolras frowns, but doesn’t question it. He’s sleep-deprived and can’t help sounding a bit sharp. “Then what is it?”

“Two things,” Courfeyrac raises a couple of fingers, then smiles, as if apologetic for bringing it up. “First, R.”

“I know,” he breathes out.

“I _really_ don’t think you do,” Courfeyrac shoots back, and his eyebrows are doing something very expressive in the middle of his forehead.

“I know I crossed the line.”

“You did,” Courfeyrac agrees. “And after you apologize,” he says, as if it’s a given that Enjolras is doing just that, “you really need to control your temper. You can’t just _say_ things like that anymore.”

He traces the pattern on the bedspread, not looking at Courfeyrac. Last night’s anger has fused with regret, but it hasn’t evaporated, and traces of it still tint his vision.

“Why am I always the one that has to keep his temper?” he asks, a hint of bitterness in his tone. “You heard the things he said. He’s always saying things to me, but no one ever calls _him_ out on it.”

Courfeyrac clears his throat. “I know. It’s that just, trust me, you’re in a better condition to control your, um, responses.”

He wants to ask why, demand that Courfeyrac explain what the hell is wrong with Grantaire—what the hell is wrong with Grantaire about _him_ —but it’d be dishonest to go about it this way. Besides, Courfeyrac would never betray Grantaire’s trust, even if he happened to have that kind of insight.

He's just woken up and he already feels tired.

“What if he doesn’t want to talk to me?” he asks in as neutral a tone he can manage.

Courfeyrac scoffs with a half wave. “He’ll forgive you. He always does.”

It won’t be the first time he apologizes to Grantaire after a nasty argument, but it was the first time he texted him in the middle of the night asking, somewhat obliquely, for permission to see him. Enjolras wouldn’t know where to start explaining the situation to Courfeyrac, so he just nods.

“Fine, I’ll take your word for it. Any recommendations?”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“That’s useful, thanks.”

Courfeyrac gives him a genuine smile this time, which turns into a grimace as soon as Enjolras asks about the second order of business.

His friend glances at the closed door, then leans forwards and lowers his voice. “Hypothetically,” he starts slowly, “if I let Ferre believe something that’s not a hundred per cent _entirely_ factual, how mad do you think he’d be?”

Enjolras blinks. “You lied to Combeferre?”

“You just _have_ to put it like that, don’t you?” Courfeyrac hisses, hiding his face in his hands; his voice is a muffled whine, escaping through his fingers. “It’s not that I _lied_ , it’s just that Ferre _assumed_ something, and I didn’t exactly correct him of that assumption.”

It’s too early for this. “You know Ferre,” he says. “He won’t get mad.”

“Really?” Courfeyrac raises his head.

“He’ll just get silent and very disappointed.”

“Why are you the way that you are?” Courfeyrac asks seriously.

Enjolras gives him a thin smile. “It’s true and you know it. Why did are skirting the truth?”

“I thought I’d help me to—” Courfeyrac bites off the end of the sentence, and makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh. “Doesn’t matter. Do you really want to know?” He looks surprised.

“If you want to tell me,” Enjolras says carefully. “Is everything okay?”

Courfeyrac laughs. “Don’t worry your pretty head over it. I’ll find a way to fix it.”

“You do that,” Enjolras says. And, a few beats later, “Courf?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you leaving any time soon?”

It’s reassuring to see Courfeyrac assume the more usual expression of a leer. “Why, Enj, don’t be shy. Let us see you out of those pajamas. Take your time, make it wort—”

“The more you linger, the longer till I apologize to Grantaire.”

“Boo,” Courfeyrac pouts. “You’re no fun.”

After he leaves, Enjolras just plops back down and wonders how on Earth he’s going to fulfill his promise.

*

He doesn’t want to call in depressed to work, so Monday morning finds Grantaire at the Musain, only fifteen minutes late.

“I know,” he tells Musichetta as soon as she spots him from behind the counter. There are only a handful of customers inside, and he knows she can handle their orders fine, but he feels a wave of guilt thinking about all the times he didn’t make it out of bed. “I probably owe you more hours than I’ve _worked_ this month and I’m sorry, I swear I’ll make it up to you, starting n—”

He swallows the word; Musichetta has come out from behind the counter and engulfed him in a hug, unconcerned about the clients watching them. The air rushes out of his lungs.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” she whispers in his ear, and for a moment he thinks he’s about to break down again. There are some questions people shouldn’t ask; _are you all right_ being right at the top of the list. He swallows whatever’s stuck in his throat and gives a poor excuse for a laugh.

“Of course I am, don’t be ridiculous,” he whispers back, and moves her arms away before he decides that what he really wants is someone to hug him all day. “Come on, don’t look at me like that. Please?”

Her face turns into something frightening. “He hasn’t come by today. If he had, I would’ve given him decaf,” she says viciously.

He doesn’t want to talk about Enjolras. It’s Grantaire’s fault it happened, and it only makes him feel worse to see them having to pick sides. Despite what Enjolras once said to him in this very café, he knew them all before Grantaire, and he’s been told Enjolras was never this cutting towards anyone until he showed up. He also doesn’t see the point in blaming Enjolras for stating the truth, especially not after Grantaire goaded him into it. He wishes he could make them understand that, but he knows they’ll protest. He often wonders how the hell he found such good friends.

“That wouldn’t really solve anything,” he tells her gently, “but I appreciate it. Come on, let me work now.”

He relieves her and loses himself in the blur of customers and orders. Enjolras usually comes by to take his morning coffee an hour before Grantaire’s shift. For a while, he entertains the idea that Enjolras has postponed his schedule to see him, but as the morning goes by he swallows disappointment with a shot of whiskey, and considers life would be better if his head could finally recognize a lost cause.

He’s got no classes to go to, so he hangs around and takes Musichetta’s shift as well, the ebb and flow of customers a welcome distraction from his thoughts. The Musain is busy and impersonal during the day, and dozens of unfamiliar faces come in and out, the atmosphere very different from what it is at night; its backroom could be in a different universe entirely.

He knows everyone has jobs, hobbies and side projects, so Grantaire’s touched when he receives quick and very unsubtle visits during the day: Joly with cookies (saying things about proper eating and stuffing them in his mouth mid-conversation), Combeferre and Courfeyrac (who try to gauge whether Enjolras has come by without mentioning either the fight or Enjolras) and Bahorel (to know if he wants to go to the gym later); while Feuilly (who actually waited for him this morning, which Grantaire knows made him late for work) and Éponine (who’s still pretending Grantaire’s keeping her sane and not the other way around) keep sending messages every other hour, as if they’re coordinating. He suspects Musichetta warned them he was here. He loves them more than he can say, but seeing them only bring his mind back to what happened, and he needs a break from thinking about Enjolras; from thinking at all.

Between orders he reads Éponine’s increasingly despairing texts.

Ep [5:13:49]: now parnasse is here and wants to kno y im upset

Ep: [5:14:23]: i only have him for company now??? fml

_No one’s kicking you out of the group_ , he sends. That’s not what they do; if they did, he suspects he’d know. She keeps a steady stream of explanations going about why she can’t show her face around the café anymore, which is why, when Cosette and Marius walk in, he points at the pair of them and says, “ _You_ are going to talk to Éponine.”

Their expressions shift instantly from sympathetic—and fuck, he’s glad to have dodged another obvious probing of his feelings—to steely (Cosette) and miserable (Marius).

“God, Grantaire, you have to help me,” he says, absentmindedly scratching his face. Cosette is running a hand up and down his back. “I don’t know what to _say_ to her, I never meant to upset her. You believe me, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Grantaire says. He does. Marius is a good friend, but he’s also been oblivious, and that obliviousness has caused his friend more pain than he likes to think about. “You understand why she’s upset?”

“Yes,” Marius blushes.

“We talked,” Cosette adds. She’s still relatively new to the group and they haven’t spoken much, but it’s hard not to like Cosette. Even when you’re trying, Éponine once said. “I never wanted to bring it up before. Maybe I should have.”

“Honestly? I don’t know. But she’s thinking she can’t be a part of the group anymore—”

“What?” Marius cries. “That’s absurd!”

He smiles. “Yes. So you should tell her that. Send a message or something. I don’t know if she’ll want to talk right away, but just let her know that you’ll speak later, when she’s ready.”

“Yes, I’ll do that right now,” Marius says in a rush, fumbling with his phone. “Thanks, R! I’ll be upstairs,” he tells Cosette, giving her a quick kiss.

They’re disgustingly sweet and he wants to die. He makes her a sweet vanilla drink and tries to joke. “So, did you come so early just to see me?”

“What do you mean," she smiles, "it’s almost six. Grantaire? What is it?”

“Shit,” he breathes out, then shouts, “Chetta! Where are you?”

Monday is not an official meeting night, but he’s can’t risk it; if people start arriving he’ll be pulled inside and he _can’t_ , not today, his stomach is churning already and he needs to—

“Are you running away?” Cosette asks calmly.

“Um,” he swallows, apron halfway through his head. “Yes?”

“I can hold the counter until Chetta shows up. I’m sure she’s just in the back.”

“You’d do this?” She’s an angel, a beautiful angel, he’s going to tell Éponine they _should_ be friends because how can you not appreciate this lovely human being. “I could kiss you right now. Wait, can you make coffee?”

“Six oh two,” she quips.

“Have fun!” he calls, clumsily putting the apron over her head.

He run out the back door breathlessly, scanning every other way as if he’s being chased. He probably looks deranged, stumbling through the streets muttering to himself, and by the time he’s halfway home he starts feeling completely ridiculous at his blossoming anxiety attack, and just hopes Cosette and Musichetta won’t tell he literally _fled_ at the prospect of seeing them, his lovely friends who make sure he’s not dying of malnutrition and who are the best thing in his life; so great he can't stand to be around them sometimes.

His breathing is almost back to normal when he skids to a halt after turning the corner on his street, realizing the overcoat-wearing figure leaning against the wall has blonde curls and blue eyes.

His stomach lurches, body reacting to the sight as it always does—craving more, desperate to keep him close—and then memory kicks in and the only reason he doesn’t turn back, regardless of the fact that it’s _his_ building, is because Enjolras sees him, gives two quick steps in his direction and yells, “Wait!”

As if he could do anything else, he thinks, frozen on the spot. As if he could do anything at all when Enjolras is _shouting for him_.

He doesn’t move; Enjolras meets him halfway, lips pressed in a thin line.

He feels immensely tired. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think?” Enjolras asks not unkindly. “Can I come up?”

He huffs out a laugh. He doesn’t mean to, but Enjolras has a way of saying things that evoke a whole world of images in his head, and every time it hurts—the off-handed way he might mention picking him up at his place or following him upstairs a reminder that none of it affects him, that none of it leaves him breathless and shaky, that he doesn’t spend the better part of his waking hours with Grantaire on his mind.

So he laughs, and Enjolras frowns, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Grantaire wonders if they’re closed into fists, like last night. He wonders if he’s angry again, if he’s trying to control himself, and if that’s why his voice sounds so small when he calls, “Grantaire?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, come on.”

He doesn’t look back as he goes up three the flights of stairs to his floor, but he hears Enjolras following him, every rustle of his coat making him miss a step. He fumbles with the keys, forgets them on the door, then turns around just as Enjolras is pulling them out and placing them on the key holder.

It crosses his mind that Enjolras looks weary as well, like when his days are too hectic and he arrives for meetings fuming because there’s not enough time to do everything he wants to do; those are the days his anger will eventually fade and there’ll only be exhaustion in every line of his face, and Grantaire will stare and stare and imagine placing that angry head on his shoulder and telling him to go sleep.

And then Enjolras says, “I’m sorry,” and he needs a moment for the words to sink in.

“You’re sorry?” he repeats. His arms feel heavy, hanging limply on his sides. The feeling spreads all over, through his skin, down to his bones, into his heart. “For what?”

“Are you joking?” Enjolras frowns and, as Grantaire doesn’t answer, makes a low sound that comes from the back of his throat. “I’m sorry for what I said last night. I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry.”

It’s the third time he says it, the first three times he has ever said it. Previous excuses have always involved subterfuge—I regret making the argument personal, Grantaire, or I hope we can put last night before us—but this, this is unmistakable.

There’s no fight in him anymore; it’s unfathomable there ever was.

“It was true,” he says numbly.

He wishes Enjolras would look away, or at least that he could read anything into the hard set of his jaw.

“Even if it was,” Enjolras says slowly, “and not all of it was, I had no right to say it.”

“Jesus,” Grantaire breathes out. “I started it, for fuck’s sake. And after the things I said, I don’t—how are you even here right now? I’m sorry too, for all that’s worth it, I—”

He halts mid-sentence; there are familiar voices in the hallway.

“Are you sure?” Feuilly is saying.

“He seemed all right,” comes the reply. Bahorel, and they’re sounding closer.

The next moment he's moving on instinct and blind panic.

*

Grantaire closes the door behind him with one hand, looks down at the one gripping his arm and drops it just as the living room door is being opened. Their friends’ voices sound much clearer now they’re on the other side of the wall.

The lights are off; Enjolras blinks in the semidarkness. “Why did you drag me here?”

“Um,” Grantaire murmurs, flushing deeply. They’re both whispering. It’s ridiculous. “I don’t know? I panicked.”

“You panicked,” he mouths.

Grantaire runs a hand going through his hair. “They’ll be out soon. They come by sometimes before going to the Musain. What?”

Enjolras has just now attuned to the conversation in the living room.

“Are you seriously telling me you don’t think he was out of line?” Bahorel is saying.

“Obviously, but it’s Enjolras, and you saw how R egged him on,” Feuilly replies. “If he could’ve just stopped himself, I don’t think Enjolras would’ve gone that far.”

“Oh my god,” Grantaire whispers. It’s the tone you might hear from someone who’s about to be brutally murdered. “Oh my god,” he repeats, covering his face with his hands. “This can’t be happening.”

His own face feels warm. He never spends time considering what others say about him when he’s not there, but he quickly comes to the conclusion he shares Grantaire’s opinion on the situation.

“Enjolras can be cruel, sometimes, though,” Bahorel says. “Remember when he asked R why he even bothered coming to meetings?”

“Are you kidding? I don’t know who was more uncomfortable, he or us.”

They share a laugh. Grantaire whimpers softly.

“Hey,” Feuilly says. “Joly says Éponine just came in and sat with the Fauchelevents. That’s good, right?”

“Hope so,” Bahorel says. “One less soap to watch, though.”

“Don’t be cruel,” Feuilly laughs, and Enjolras is vaguely offended beneath the overwhelming discomfort he’s feeling. “No sign of Enj and R, though. Hiding?”

“Both? Probably.”

This is hysterical, part of his brain whispers. If Courfeyrac ever finds out, he’s going to have to be resuscitated.

“Are we going there or what?” Feuilly asks.

Grantaire exhales like he’s been holding his breath for several minutes. Then Bahorel says, “Nah,” and there’s a whine, and Enjolras doesn’t know whether it came from Grantaire or himself.

“If they’re not there, nothing will happen," Bahorel says. “Fuck, since when do we make plans around our friends’ dramas?”

“It’s a sad turn of events. And we have such interesting lives, too.” By the sound of it, Feuilly is opening the fridge. “Poison of choice?”

“Beer, let’s not go wild on a Monday,” Bahorel replies. “Don’t you have plans?”

“Still to be seen.” Rustling noises, and the twin thumps of bodies falling onto something soft. “What’s on today?” Feuilly asks, and their voices are joined by the sound of the TV.

Grantaire takes his hands from his face shakily.

“You look like you’re having war flashbacks,” he whispers.

Grantaire raises an eyebrow. “If only,” he says cryptically, then clears his throat. “They’re both dating, they’re not going to sit around all night, right?”

Enjolras shrugs. “I guess not?”

He puts his right hand against the wall, immediately pulling it back when he feels something rough beneath his fingers. There’s a canvas propped up against the wall.

This is Grantaire’s room.

He turns. It’s a mess, which is precisely what he’d expect, he realizes, if he was ever to imagine the inside of Grantaire’s room. There are strewn clothes and books, paints and brushes stuck in pencil cases, photographs with faces he can’t distinguish on the walls. A sketchbook that looks like the one he leafed through is on the bedside table; the bed is unmade.

It feels lived in, personal. Your room, he thinks, it's the most personal place you can ever let anyone in, where you only ever allow your friends, because there are traces of you everywhere, scraps of your life lying in every corner. He tries to take it all in; wishes they could turn on the lights so he could see the paintings, and yet the falling darkness makes it feel intimate, like he’s in a corner of Grantaire’s mind; and what does Grantaire think about as he falls asleep? The thought crosses his mind unbridled, too fast for him to control or analyze it.

“What?” Grantaire asks again.

“Do you just throw things in here?” he asks. “Is this why the living room’s so clean?”

“Shut up,” Grantaire grumbles.

Enjolras smiles. They stay quiet for a moment, still standing in front of the door, the sound of the TV and the occasional comment by their friends filling the silence.

Grantaire shuffles. “Do you want to, um, sit? Shit, I’ll make the bed, wait a sec—”

He moves quickly, taking the chance to close the sketchbook and shove it beneath a book. Enjolras supposes it was meant to be done discreetly, so he doesn’t acknowledge the action, but there must be a reason Grantaire did that, and what if it was another drawing of him? 

Grantaire stands back. “There you go.”

He carefully sits on the bed. When nothing creaks, he pulls himself backwards until his back is against the wall and crosses his legs.

Grantaire is still standing in the middle of the room.

This is by far the most awkward situation in his life, and Enjolras thinks it’s justified that his heart is somewhat erratic.

“Will you just _sit_?”

It’s simply a matter of not being able to speak to him so far away, he thinks, surely Grantaire’s come to the same conclusion. The mattress dips with his weight, and Grantaire mimics his position, wringing his hands on his lap.

“Are we okay?” Enjolras asks, because their talk was interrupted and he really needs to know.

Grantaire laughs sofly. “What is even _okay_ for us?”

It’s a good question. They’ve known each other for almost three years and barely have anything to go back to. The realization leaves a sour taste in his mouth. 

“We were okay this weekend,” he says. “Weren’t we?”

Grantaire licks his lips. “Yes?”

And here’s another thing he’s recently discovered about Grantaire: he can be monosyllabic. Almost as if he’s taunting Enjolras, daring him to speak first, to say things that make him uncomfortable, to actually work on building—whatever this is, a friendship of sorts. 

“ _In that case_ ,” he urges, “are we okay? Or should we just settle on being the worst possible versions of ourselves?”

That’s not his way of doing things. He believes in people, how could he not believe in them?

Grantaire brightens even while seeming wary, a combination of emotions previously unknown to Enjolras. Then, as if he can read his mind, says, “All right. We’ll do things your way.”

“Good,” he says. “Because I wanted to ask you something about art.”

“Oh?” Grantaire startles at the change of topic, a line of teeth gleaming in the dark. “Anything I can do to educate the masses,” he says generously.

He starts talking before he can second-guess himself. As hard as it is to speak to Grantaire most of the time, he’s finding out it can be incredibly easy as well. Evidence is too sparse to know if it can last, but there’s only one way to find out. He doesn’t say that the weekend has awakened in him an excitement for the topic he never felt before, but as he mentions things they’ve seen; as he interrogates Grantaire on things he’s read before and which have come to the front of his mind; as he has to control his tone to not let it rise beyond a whisper, he fears—hopes?—Grantaire can tell.

The room gets darker and darker until lights start popping up in the buildings across from Grantaire’s, blurry stars they see through light curtains. Conversation has moved on a long time ago; from the highest points of human achievement they’ve come to the mundane.

“Why would anyone have white curtains?”

“I like white,” Grantaire says.

“That’s not the point,” he rolls his eyes. “They let in all the light. If your curtains aren’t going to keep out the light, what’s the point of having them?”

“So your neighbors won’t get a free strip show every time you dress?”

“Hm,” he says noncommittally.  

“They’re supposed to let in the light,” Grantaire expounds. “Otherwise I’d never wake up. What colors are your curtains? No, wait, let me guess.”

“They’re brown, actually,” Enjolras says, triumphant. “Bet you didn’t see that coming. You see, I can have useful curtains, because I have this thing, what’s it called? Oh yeah, an  _alarm clock_.”

“You can turn off an alarm,” says Grantaire wisely, tipping his head back against the wall. Enjolras sees the outline of his neck, muscles shifting almost imperceptibly as he murmurs, “You can’t turn off the sun.”

“White curtains,” he mutters. "Madness."

They stay silent for a time, listening to the indistinct narration of some game and their friends’ occasional comment.

Then Enjolras blurts out, “We should talk.”

Grantaire turns to face him, a slant in the corners of his lips. “Weren’t we just doing that?”

“About your drinking,” he clarifies.

Grantaire stills; his eyes, in the darkness, suddenly look very young. A sigh escapes him, the softest sound that settles somewhere between Enjolras’s ribs.

“Seriously?”

He doesn’t know where this newfound steadiness is coming from; maybe from Grantaire, who looks like he’s coming apart at the seams, but he presses. “This way we can’t fight.”

“I’m sure we could find a way,” Grantaire says. He holds his gaze. “Enjolras.” His name like a plea.

“You’re right,” he says, and evokes words that have been eating at him. “I don’t always understand people. I don’t understand you. It’d be so much—easier if I did.”

“Understand me?” Grantaire stammers.

“Yes,” and he’s wondered so many times, ever since Grantaire sauntered into a meeting and he realized the cynical newcomer had more than a leisurely interest in drinking, “why do you do this?” 

Grantaire draws his knees up, breathes shakily, then shocks him by haltingly answering, “We don’t all know what we’re doing, Enjolras. I guess I never have. I don’t know, when I realized, it was just out of control.” An exhale. “It was just who I was.”

“Have you ever tried to stop?”

Grantaire nods. “Couple of times,” he says. The TV is background noise now; a world apart. Grantaire gives a self-deprecating laugh. “Wasn’t exactly fun and I gave up.”

He needs a moment to process this. “Do you mean you—” He gapes. “You’re not supposed to go cold turkey, are you kidding me?” But Grantaire’s not kidding at all, and something heavy presses down on his chest, drawing all the air from the room. “When was this? Did you tell anyone?”

“No,” Grantaire says simply, and the fact he’s revealing this to Enjolras is almost too much to take in.

“You’re supposed to do it gradually,” he hisses, with as much conviction as he can without being able to raise his voice. “Cut by half for a week, then again and so on. Stay away from bars. Have a support system.”

“Since when are you an expert?” Grantaire narrows his eyes.

“I looked it up,” he says.

“You looked it up,” Grantaire repeats.

No one speaks for a long moment.

Then, “Why?”

“Why do you think?”

Night has fallen; it’s impossible to tell what Grantaire thinks.

“When?”

“I don’t know, a while back,” Enjolras says. “I wasn’t going to say anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. I wasn’t planning on forcing you into anything. I’m just saying, if you’re going to, you should go about it the smart way.”

It comes out of him all in a rush, words tumbling one over the other. He hears Grantaire breathing irregularly beside him.  

“That’s good advice,” Grantaire says several minutes later, then gives a nervous laugh. “They’re not leaving, are they?”

The sounds from the TV have turned into something identifiable as a procedural.

“ _Law and Order_ reruns,” Grantaire informs him. “This could go on for five or six hours. I’m sorry. About all of this. We can come out if you want.”

He does his best to glare in the almost total darkness. “And say _what_ , exactly?”

“Right,” Grantaire murmurs.

It seems like they’re in it for the night. It’s fine, he’s done this before. It’s no big deal. They might as well just settle this now. “So, do we share?”

“Share?”

“The bed.”

Grantaire makes a keening noise, followed by a cough. “Take the bed,” he offers quickly.

“It’s your room,” Enjolras says. “I’m not going to make you sleep on the floor.”

“Right,” Grantaire says. “That would be absurd. Why not? We’ll—sleep, then. I just, I need to, um.”

“What?” he prompts.

“I need a drink,” Grantaire confesses.

_Oh_. “It’s okay,” he says, as naturally as he can. It is. He wants to make Grantaire understand but stays quiet as the mattress shifts.

Grantaire moves to kneel in front of the bedside table; Enjolras tips sideways, stretches his legs, pulls Grantaire’s pillow from beneath the covers. It smells of cigarette, alcohol and shampoo, and he lies on his side with a hand underneath it. Grantaire pulls a bottle out of a drawer—he has alcohol in his bedside table, he thinks, mind blank, a heaviness in his chest.

Then there’s a dip beneath him, and a body next to him, and even though they’re not touching at all, Grantaire radiates warmth. It’s a single bed; Grantaire lies on his back stiffly, arms crossed over himself. They just breathe for a few moments, a tense silence between them.

“I woke up today and Courfeyrac was there,” he breaks it.

It works. Grantaire head snaps so quickly Enjolras almost bursts into laughter. “In your—”

“Chair,” he smiles. “He wanted to talk about… well, I’m not sure, to be honest. I think he’s done something stupid.”

“He wanted to talk about Combeferre,” Grantaire guesses correctly, and Enjolras raises an eyebrow in the darkness. “He’s an idiot. A well-meaning idiot, but…”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” he confesses, and maybe he’s not talking just about Courfeyrac’s problems.

“I’m not sure I do either,” Grantaire says. “But be prepared for whe— _shit_.”

Whatever he was going to say is lost when a low buzzing noise comes from Grantaire’s back pocket. He fumbles to take his phone out, and turns the screen towards him.

Feuilly [10:34:56]: are you alive?

“What if you shouted _yes_ right now,” Enjolras says dryly.

“Shut up,” Grantaire bites his bottom lip, his mouth twisted in a smile. “I’ll say I’m staying at Ponine’s, she’ll cover for me. Shouldn’t you let Ferre know?”

He completely forgot about his roommate, his apartment and everything else, even with the sounds coming from the other room reminding him of the world outside this room. But he doesn’t know how to explain this to Combeferre; if he’s honest with himself, doesn’t even want to try. By now he's had to admit he’s keeping things from his best friend, skirting around the truth. I sound like Courfeyrac, he thinks, which gives him an idea.

_Are you squatting at my apt again?_ he sends.

Courf [10:35:12]: no??? im at home. RUDE.

_I’m telling Ferre I’m staying with you tonight. Just confirm if he asks._

Courf [10:37:42]: R U HAVING AN AFFAIR

Courf [10:38:26]: IM NOT UR DANCING MONKEY

_Maybe when I talk to Ferre I’ll mention your visit this morning._

Courf [10:39:13]: oh WOW

Courf [10:39:54]: IS THIS WHAT WE’VE COME TO

He waits.

Courf [10:41:12]: FINE BUT I WANT DEETS L8R

“Are you planning a government takedown?” Grantaire asks after this has been going on for a few minutes.

Enjolras shushes him. “I’m negotiating.”

_As soon as you tell me what you’re lying about_ , he writes, and when Courfeyrac answers with a stream of curses, he smiles in the darkness and texts Combeferre, carefully not thinking about it as the betrayal it is.

He puts the phone down.

They both look instinctively towards the door when Bahorel shouts.

“I knew it was her!”

“No you fucking didn’t,” Feuilly snorts loudly.

Enjolras bites the inside of his mouth; punches Grantaire lightly on the arm. “You panicked,” he snickers.

They look at each other, eyes meeting in the dark, and just like that something snaps; he has to stuff his face into the pillow, a violent burst of laughter starting in his stomach and spreading to his limbs, shaking his whole body; and he can’t even explain what’s so funny, but Grantaire has both hands clamped over his mouth and is trying to apologize but is laughing too hard so it comes out in staccato bursts of air, and it only makes them laugh harder, the kind of laughter that leaves tears at the corners of your eyes and a pain in your sides; the kind of laughter he doesn't remember the last time he laughed.

When they settle down, something has stretched and loosened in the air between them.

He feels light. He says, “I’d stay with you,” without really planning to.

Grantaire inhales sharply. “What?”

“If you wanted to try again,” he clarifies. And maybe this is the wrong thing to say, maybe he’s crossing a completely different line here, but he means it, wants to repay confidence with something that matters. “I’d stay with you, when you were alone, if it helps.”

Grantaire gives a few unsteady breaths. “I don't want to be your charity case.”

“It wouldn’t be like that,” he says quickly. “I’m not saying you have to, but you’ve tried before, and… I’m just saying I would. If you didn’t want to tell anyone else, I mean. Someone should know. And you’d pay me back.”

“Oh?” Grantaire snorts. “With what?”

“Food, obviously,” and Grantaire snorts again, “stolen food if you must. Coffee. A quiet place to work. Maybe some work for the group.”

“Want me to sweep the room before you arrive?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of some art. Ferre and I have been thinking, we need more visibility. We want to start a marketing campaign of sorts, maybe do something viral, put some stuff on our Facebook page.” The idea is old, but he’s been thinking about it since he saw Grantaire’s work. “You could draw for us? I know it’s not your thing, but I was going to ask you,” he admits, “regardless of—of whether you decide to do anything or not.”

He holds his breath for about three years, then Grantaire tells the ceiling, “I’ll think about it,” and they don't say anything after that.

*

To his relief and disappointment, he doesn’t wake up tangled in Enjolras.

They’re still keeping to their sides of the bed, yet they’re as close as they’ve ever been, and his heart immediately begins a wild hammering, the same painful rhythm that threatened to choke him during the hours he spent locked in with Enjolras. In his room. In his _bed_. Sunlight filters in through his absurdly white curtains, but it’s nothing to do with how he feels a flush in his skin and a fluttering in his chest, in his stomach, in a spot of him that doesn’t even reside in his body. He watches the peaceful rise and fall of Enjolras’s chest, feeling only a little guilty. In his own there’s something constricting that he’s only ever associated with Enjolras, and now it’s out of control, suffocating.

He wants a drink. It reminds him of what Enjolras said—what he’s offering. It’s really not helping Grantaire maintain a semblance of normality, so he gathers his strength to first shift his gaze and then his body away from Enjolras. He quietly opens the door and tiptoes to the living room. No one’s there; Bahorel must’ve left, really late or early in the morning. He goes back and clears his throat at the foot of the bed.

Nothing happens. Enjolras sleeps like a log.

“Enjolras,” he whispers. Nothing. Softly, he touches Enjolras’s ankle until he startles awake.

“Sorry,” he says. “Bahorel’s gone. Do you want to leave?”

Enjolras blinks sleepily at him, running a hand through his hair. It’s a mess, curls sticking up and falling on his face. Grantaire always thought he woke up properly coiffed, like in a commercial. Affection blooms in his chest.

“Yeah,” Enjolras mumbles.  

He closes the door behind Enjolras and stumbles back into the room; stands at the foot of the bed, lets the first pangs of cravings and the sense of Enjolras mix into a single terrifying, dizzying emotion, and thinks, later, I’ll wait a little longer; crawls into the other side of the bed, burrows his face in the soft fabric beneath him, and breathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://sonhoedesrazao.tumblr.com)! And thank you again for the comments! they really make my day.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how the hell did this get so many kudos sdjkfhhgk thank you all so much

He begins reconsidering asking Courfeyrac to be his accomplice as soon as he’s on the street and his phone flashes with two new messages. One is a group text (LUXEMBOURG CAROUSEL—BE THERE FOR LUNCH OR ELSE) followed by a somewhat cryptic and personal one (WE GO DOWN TOGETHER MY FRIEND), which Enjolras assumes is the sort of half warning half threat can expect to receive for the remainder of his natural life.

Sighing, he writes back— _resistance is futile_ being one of Courfeyrac’s favorite sayings—just as a new message pops up. He stumbles, narrowly avoiding being run over by a scooter.

Grantaire [6:23:57]: for all your whining you slept through the white curtains of hell

_Bet you sabotaged my alarm_ , he sends, and: _Did you get Courfs txt?_

Grantaire must have, of course. Part of him realizes that’s not what he’s asking.

Grantaire [6:25:13]: i never say no to the carousel

_See you later_ , he writes.

He’s filled with a sort of quiet contentment, which lasts until daylight, with its orange-blue hues rising up around him, stirs up thoughts that had been smothered by the shadows of Grantaire’s room. Courfeyrac will want to know where he was, and why did he resort to such a subterfuge in the first place? It seems absurd now. It was no big deal, he and Grantaire are friends. Rather, they _should_ be friends, and they’re working on it. Isn’t that what they all want? So why can’t be bring himself to talk about it with anyone?

His thoughts follow disorderly paths while his feet graciously take him home, the sounds of people and cars muffled as his mind is overtaken by a tangle of thoughts he can’t put in any semblance of order.

He finds Combeferre sprawled on the couch, a steaming mug in one hand and a book in the other, the picture of vacation contentment.

“Hey,” Combeferre greets him with a smile. A terrible sense of guilt drops on him. “Courf said he was helping you get your shit together? His words.”

“He thought I needed a pep talk before speaking with Grantaire,” he says, which very, _very_ technically isn’t a lie.

Combeferre accepts his words without suspicion, and he swallows down an unfamiliar feeling. Shame, he thinks. It’s very—unpleasant.

“And how did that go?” Combeferre asks cautiously.

“All right,” he shrugs, plopping down on the coffee table. “It was… surprisingly easy, actually.”

“Really?” There’s a hint of surprise in Combeferre’s tone. “Does that mean the pep talk worked?”

“Don’t say a word of this to Courf, all right?” he groans. “You’re going to his thing?”

Combeferre’s mouth opens wordlessly for a moment, fingers playing with the corner of a page, and there's this faraway look in his eyes for a moment. “Yeah, why not?”

He remembers Courfeyrac’s admission to be keeping something from Combeferre; remembers _he’s_ keeping things from the both of them in turn, and feels an immense desire not to be a part of any more secrets.

“Is Courf… all right, do you think?” he tries awkwardly.

Combeferre’s eyes turn to him quickly. He watches Enjolras over the rim of his glasses, putting the book down on his lap and taking a sip of his coffee. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Don’t you think he’s been a little strange lately?”

“That’s understandable, what with the,” Combeferre makes a gesture with his free hand that means absolutely nothing. “You know, love. Thing.”

“ _That_ ,” he breathes out. He’d forgotten it completely, in the following days. Now he recalls Courfeyrac was there when he spoke to Grantaire in the café, wanting advice; remembers chalking it up to typical Courfeyrac enthusiasm and thinking it would fade in a couple of days, which was probably unfair of him. “Has he said anything _else_ about it?” he asks.

Combeferre is suddenly very still. “Sort of? He’s mentioned he’s trying to—find a way to make a move.” The next words almost sound like a whine, except Combeferre would never _whine_. “He keeps asking for _advice_.“ Then he sighs, and Courfeyrac must be particularly annoying if he managed to draw such a sound. “Do you really want to hear about Courf’s love life?”

“I’ll pass. Listen,” he takes the chance to change the subject, “I might have, um. Convinced Grantaire to help us with the group.”

Combeferre’s left eyebrow almost meets his hairline. “That must’ve been one hell of a pep talk.”

“Give me some credit, will you?” he shoots back, more irritably than he intended.

“I do,” Combeferre says, then more pausedly, “Enj. I _do_. It’s a good thing you decided to talk to him.”

“So I’ve been told,” he says. Everyone seems to think he’s the one who needs to take the first step. He feels he’s taken a dozen more, and wonders how they would feel about it. “Are you busy? I’ve been thinking about some posters for September. We could brainstorm, have something to present to Grantaire later.”

Combeferre laughs. “Do I look busy?” and pushes himself up.  

The morning goes by fast as they draw up an ambitious plan for the group. The September rally has him excited to expand; they’ve got several volunteers already and other groups have joined in, eager to make themselves heard in the action. He wants to talk the next five years, Combeferre suggests they focus on the one first; they talk goals and propaganda and discuss the possibility of transmitting the actions live on the web and calling people out to the streets. By the time they’re supposed to meet Courfeyrac, he’s pleased and makes a vow to let Combeferre know some of what’s been going on as soon as he can. Combeferre will forgive him, surely. He doesn’t think about what he told Courfeyrac yesterday morning, doesn’t consider the possibility of his best friend being disappointed in him.

When they get into Luxembourg Gardens, they find the others already in the appointed place, standing around Courfeyrac in a semicircle of crossed arms and tapping feet.

“Sorry we’re late,” Combeferre says. “Got a bit carried away with work.”

“Since he didn’t specify the time, we can’t be late,” Enjolras points out.

He receives several looks back, but they’re not the awkward, borderline hostile expressions some of them put on after he and Grantaire get into a fight, a look that lasts sometimes entire meetings, days, even, until things have cooled down and he and Grantaire start bickering again, returning to their old routine. Later, he’ll discover Grantaire had huffily told them that _it’s fine, they’re fine_ , and Courfeyrac implied that Enjolras apologized _properly_ , thus winning, apparently, their approval. (Later, he’ll try to figure out why that makes him both annoyed and pleased.) Now, he’s only relieved he doesn’t have to start explaining himself; glances at Grantaire and receives the smallest nod in acknowledgment, a shy grin.

“Pretty sure arriving last is arriving late,” Courfeyrac says. “But I’m in a forgiving mood, as so _many_ of us days.” (Enjolras plans to throttle him and everyone else who snickered, but Grantaire glances at him and Grantaire smiles thinly and rolls his eyes and he lets it pass.) “Besides,” Courfeyrac adds, “I’m still at my break.”

“Break?” Joly laughs. “Break from what?”

“I’ve a got a job,” Courfeyrac says proudly. “I’ve joined the ranks of the working masses!”

A round of congratulations, and Jehan asks, "Doing what?"

Courfeyrac turns his back to them, opens his arms in an ample gesture that encompasses perhaps the whole park, and declares dramatically, “Everything the light touches is my kingdom.” Then, swiveling back, “All right, not _everything_ , but everything in the immediate vicinity of the carousel is my kingdom. I am the carousel man.”

“Oh my god!” Cosette exclaims. “That’s adorable.”

“How did you even manage that?” Enjolras asks.

“I have connections,” Courfeyrac says. “Well, R has connections—so many connections. He’s like the Moriarty of Paris, I swear, only working the good of the people,” and he grabs Grantaire and places a sloppy kiss on his forehead.

Grantaire unceremoniously pushes him away. “I’m open for consultations Mondays through Thursdays,” he says dryly, wiping his face. 

“Does this mean we get to ride for free?” Bossuet asks.

“Of course not, you mooching knave! I’m an honest man. I will, however, pay for anyone who convinces Enjolras to go on a ride.”

There’s a great whoop of excitement, Grantaire’s laughter distinctive among the rest, while Enjolras does his best to explain how much he is _not_ going on the carousel. Soon, a somewhat spontaneous picnic appears, and though Feuilly and Musichetta have to go back to work, the rest of them occupy a couple of tables.

“Do we still win if we drug him?” Bahorel asks after a while.

“He’ll fall,” Jehan points out.

“There’s a safety strap,” Courfeyrac says. “But that’s no fun! I want to watch the light go out of his eyes as he goes round and round.”

“You _are_ all aware this thing is made for children, right?” A round of groans. “It’s a matter of weight! This thing is _old_ —”

A reasonable argument, he thinks, but no one pays him any heed. He sits between Combeferre and Courfeyrac; Grantaire’s at the other end of the table. He suspects, by the way everyone moved quickly and purposefully, that they did their best to keep them far from one another, as if expecting tempers to flare again at the slightest proximity.

He bets Grantaire’s dying to say something about carousel rides, and is sort of surprised and regretful to find him to mute about this, and all other things. Grantaire talks only once during lunch—he gets into a hushed conversation with Éponine, who’s sitting beside him, and they both seem annoyed after it ends. Not that Enjolras is keeping track.

He turns to Courfeyrac. “You’re not really putting grown people in those things, are you?” he says. “They look fragile.”

“ _You_ look fragile, the horses can handle themselves,” Courfeyrac counters, then lowers his tone, an evil gleam in his eyes. “Can’t wait to see you there. Maybe I’ll just use all the information I have to convince you to take a ride.” A wiggle of eyebrows.

“Are you a blackmailer as well as a carousel man?” Enjolras answers in the same low tone.

“Takes one to know one.” Courfeyrac pokes him. “ _Tell me your secrets_.”

“No.”

“Please? I know you went to R’s at some point, good job on that, by the way, but then what?”

He shrugs. “I spent the night.”

Courfeyrac laughs, almost choking on some fries. “I’m fine,” he tells the table at large, coughing, and then to him, in a whisper, “As much as I’d love if that were true, he stayed at Ponine last night. So you sit on a throne of lies. This is becoming a problem, Enjolras.”

Grantaire will love to hear this, he thinks, and smiles at Courfeyrac—the smile he has, he’s been told, when he’s about to drive an opponent into the dust. “You’ll never know,” he croons, and Courfeyrac’s expression is worth it.

Lunch is interrupted when someone pulls on Courfeyrac’s sleeve. It’s a little girl, maybe five-year-old, in tiny jeans and a red blouse, blonde curls framing her head.

“Are you the carousel man?”

Someone coos around the table.

“I am,” Courfeyrac says, dignity personified. “What can I do for you?”

Turns out Courfeyrac’s late—on the first day, too, someone points out—so he makes a hasty retreat. After that people disperse, those who have jobs or plans returning to them, all agreeing to meet later (“This is unhealthy,” grumbles Bahorel, agreeing as well), leaving Combeferre and Enjolras sitting at one side of the table, and Grantaire at the other, a few seats away. They watch as Courfeyrac lifts kids up to wooden horses, carefully buckles the safety straps, chats with parents as he collects the fee, and is generally very good at keeping tourists and Parisians alike pleased. Every once in a while he glances in their direction and waves happily, though Enjolras gets a distinct sense those smiles are not directed at him.

“Maybe _I_ should get a job,” he muses.

“Hm?” Combeferre murmurs. He’s staring blankly at the carousel, absentmindedly tearing apart a napkin.

Enjolras wants to ask what is _wrong_ with him, but from the corner of his eyes he sees Grantaire, straddling the bench, body turned towards them, gaze lost in the distance. He mutters, “Nothing,” and leaves Combeferre to his thoughts. It’s hardly fair of him to demand answers from Combeferre, after all.

He slides a few places to his right until he’s in front of Grantaire, who startles when he approaches, and repeats, “Maybe _I_ should get a job.”

“Oh?” Grantaire recovers and grins. He seems happy, left arm resting on the table, fingers tapping a beat. “Something involving a lot of kids, I hope.”

“Primary school teacher?”

“Children’s buffet coordinator.”

“Balloon animal artist.”

“You overestimate your skills,” Grantaire says dryly.

“Hey!”

“I’m serious. You think you have the time to learn something like that? It’s either balloon animals or social justice. You can’t have both.”

So he gets chatty Grantaire today. He can work with that.

“Maybe sell things?” he asks after a moment.

The day is bright but slightly chilly; the sounds of people talking and children laughing in the distance mix with the rustle of leaves, swayed by a light breeze; everything’s conspiring to create a laziness that’s settling over him like a warm blanket.

“What things?” Grantaire asks.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes? It’s one thing to sell books, another to sell body parts.”

“ _That’s_ the spectrum?”

“And you’d hate selling things. Imagine having to deal with customers.”

“Jehan does it,” he points out.

“Jehan hears dozens of people every day looking for _Fifty Shades of Gray_ and never stops smiling.”

“I’m starting to see the appeal of body parts,” he murmurs, and Grantaire barks out a laugh.

He _should_ get a job. Grantaire might be right about him not having enough time, but he’ll just have to find a way to balance everything. He’s been thinking about it since their fight, though he knows better than to bring _that_ up again.

“I’m serious,” he presses. “Any ideas?”

Grantaire frowns. “You want my opinion,” he says, like a question.

That’s what friends do, isn’t it? Part of him thinks he should run from Grantaire’s opinion—the part that’s still churning at Grantaire’s angry words from Sunday—but he’s not in the habit of avoidance.

“I thought you were open for consultation?”  

Grantaire huffs, then gives him one of those inscrutable looks of his—quiet and intense, meaning disdain or doubt, or maybe something else entirely.

“You could do translation,” Grantaire says, and he wasn’t even aware Grantaire knew he was bilingual. “Marius says it doesn’t pay well and it makes you obsessive-compulsive, but you’d probably like another thing to obsess over. Or revision. There are publishers who use freelancers, some even hire. You could check out publishing houses, see if there are any vacancies. Newspapers, too—you don’t need a diploma to write, and you’re always writing those blog posts.” Grantaire knows he has a blog? “You’d be better than most of the people I see around, anyway,” he mutters. “Or you could do like Jehan, remember when he worked at that library? Easier than selling books, according to him. Of course that’s pretty nine-to-five, you won’t have much time left. If you’re up to doing something completely mindless, you can take the graveyard shift at some hotel. There’s almost never any movement, usually only a few late-night customers. With your English, you’d get hired easily.” He pauses. “None of it is going to make you rich, but…”

“That’s okay,” he says quickly. It’s more than okay, it’s direction he didn’t really expect. He’s staring, trying to absorb everything Grantaire said; and Grantaire knows he has a _blog_? “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Grantaire says quietly.

His fingers are still tapping that damn beat; it’s almost strange to see them not wrapped around a bottle—and something clicks in his brain, sudden and striking. Grantaire hasn’t drunk a single sip of alcohol while they’ve been at the park. Maybe the realization shows in his face, because Grantaire stills, peering at him hesitantly.

The moment drags while he’s trying to find a way to put it. He clears his throat, “Um,” and that’s not even a word, he hates stumbling over words, why can’t he form sentences all of a sudden, “so did you—?”

His words say nothing but Grantaire understands—nods at him, an odd smile playing at the corners of his lips, like it’s no big deal, like he suggested Grantaire had cream in his coffee and he decided to try it out. Grantaire, who doubts all his endeavors, who sneers at all his beliefs, who doesn’t think Enjolras knows anything about people nor can help them—Grantaire is following his suggestion, willing to try such a monumental thing just because Enjolras suggested, because Enjolras offered to stay with him, to keep him from relapsing, to keep him company.

It occurs to him no one has ever trusted him with more.

“Should we interrupt their staring match?” Courfeyrac stage-whispers.

He startles; he hadn’t even seen Courfeyrac come over. He’s grinning wildly, standing in front of Combeferre, who’s giving Enjolras an odd look.

“I have some things to do,” Combeferre tells him vaguely. “See you at home?”

“Yeah,” Enjolras says automatically.

“I’ll see you tonight?” Courfeyrac asks.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Combeferre mutters, and leaves.

“Smooth,” Grantaire pipes up when Combeferre’s beyond listening range.

Courfeyrac scowls. “If I didn’t have kids depending on me, you’d hear something about _smooth_ ,” he says before striding back to the carousel.

Enjolras doesn’t have a clue how to interpret any of it. He feels bewilderment and something else, an itch that spreads through his limbs as far as his fingers; the same fingers that are gripping the edge of his seat.

“Graveyard shift,” he says. “I like it.”

Grantaire brightens. “Really?”

“I’m not sure where to start. Do you know any places that are hiring?”

Grantaire leans forward across the table. “I know all the places,” he says, like a secret. Then, getting up, “I’ll make you a list, free of charge.” He grins wildly. “Don’t tell Courfeyrac.”

Enjolras stares at his back until he disappears from sight.

*

Helping Enjolras—with anything—is enough of a thrill to keep him going.

It’s a first, really, so he throws himself in it; texts a few acquaintances, goes by a couple of places, calls people he vaguely remembers speaking to once and whose numbers have ended up in his phone somehow, and ends up with five numbers—five different places in Paris that might give Enjolras a job. He goes home and sends them (numbers and, after careful editing, his opinions on the options), then flops on the bed (the bed they shared, his brain whispers traitorously) and waits, heart beating dangerously in his chest.

Less than a minute later, he reads:

Enjolras [5:18:45]: That was fast! Thanks. See you tonight.

He reads it again and again, mouths the words until they are ringing in his ears; leaps off the bed, makes a circuit of the apartment twice, and throws himself on the couch laughing alone, a nervous sound that bounces off the walls; then goes back to his room, flops down on the bed on his stomach, and reads all the messages they’ve exchanged this week, though he knows them by heart.

You’re going to wake up any moment now, he thinks, this is going to end sooner or later, and you’ll be too broken to be put together afterwards. But thoughts like these, tinged with a sense of inevitability, get crushed beneath a happiness so overwhelming that it goes all the way back to painful, and are then ignored.  

He remembers, instead, Enjolras coming near him, like something out of a dream, and grabs his sketchbook from the bedside table. He doesn’t need to see Enjolras to draw him, of course—his fingers expertly trace a lifelike portrait, scenery blurry and dull in comparison to his object, his hair ruffled by the breeze, a peaceful look to him as he joked with Grantaire. He doesn’t have to think hard to know it’s the first time Enjolras ever came to him willingly—simply to _talk_ to him, that is, without being forced to apologize over harsh words—and he feels an unfamiliar warmth pooling inside him.  

He keeps sketching, stopping only when he starts feeling queasy. He doesn’t want to drink at the café—doesn’t want Enjolras to think he’s not serious about this—so he’s planned his day accordingly. He’ll just have a few drinks before he leaves. He can do this. People do it all the time. Enjolras thinks he can do it, and has set it simply, a straightforward plan, mathematical and precise, the kind of thing that can’t fail. It’s just a matter of assessing how much he drinks and cutting back gradually.

He snorts, a hand scratching his scalp while the other traces the penciled outline of a face. He knows, of course, how much he drinks in a day; knew he had a problem when alcohol became part of the budget, like electricity and gas. When he’s broke he buys less for more—cheaper and stronger—and he knows it’ll ruin his liver faster, but what can he do? They probably wouldn’t believe it, he thinks, if he told he plans his days around drinking, that it feels like a chore now. So he knows exactly how much alcohol goes into his system every day, and that’s math too. It’ll just be a matter of subtracting from the total, almost not even dependent on him. It can’t fail.

He puts the sketchbook inside a drawer, in case—and the fact there’s a chance of it leaves him breathless—Enjolras comes by, and a few minutes later he’s out the door, on his way to meet Éponine, who leaves work at six and who wants to walk with him to the Musain.

Grantaire’s only been a couple of times to the company she work for, and both times waited outside, side-eyeing the suited-up men and women who came out of the building before she did. Today, she’s already waiting. He catches her just as she’s putting down her hair, taking out her suit jacket and exchanging two small round earrings for an intricate piece with fake gems.

He whistles. Éponine’s head whips up, eyes going from murderous to only mildly annoyed in point two seconds.

“You’re funny,” she deadpans. “Why are you smiling? You shouldn’t be smiling. I know you’re lying and I’m squeezing the truth out of you.”

“I’m not lying,” he says, offended. They walk.

It’s true. The night before he had written, quite accurately: _tell feuilly im with you. locked myself in my own room and cant come out because awkward_.

She narrows her eyes. “And have you told me the whole truth?” She watches his reaction closely and gives a triumphant shout. “I knew it. I know _you_. And you’re,” she gestures his face in general, “ _happy_.”

“I’m sorry?” he tries.

“That’s not what I mean, idiot. You should be happy. You should always be happy,” she adds, and hooks her arm in his, more leading him that being led by him, but nevertheless as much a display of affection as Éponine ever gives anyone. “But your moods are awfully connected to you-know-who and when he’s involved there’s always a possibility for catastrophe.”

She’s being slightly unfair. He’s only cried himself to sleep in her bed once, passed out drunk only twice. That’s not counting all the times he did it alone, but she doesn’t need to know about them. All in all, hardly catastrophic.

“Fine,” he cedes. He doesn’t plan on telling her everything. Despite itching to, his motives haven’t changed. But Éponine is too intuitive for her own good, so he offers, “We’ve been sort of talking lately.”

“Talking?” she demands. “Just like that? Out of nowhere?”

“Sort of? It started with a fight.”

She snorts, and he summarizes the conversation. He doesn’t tell her about the Louvre, or the afternoon at his apartment, and particularly not about last night, but mentions Enjolras came by to apologize for Sunday and their conversation that morning, and says they’ve exchanged a few messages the last few days.

She puts on a great show of being suspicious, but Grantaire can tell this isn’t what she expected.

“And what is friendly Enjolras like?” she asks.

Beautiful, he thinks, but he is always beautiful, even when enraged, even when cold and indifferent. He considers the question. This new side of Enjolras is quieter. Softer. He smiles more and more easily than Grantaire ever thought possible. He is still passionate, though, still loves to talk and argue and learn new things, even when Grantaire is the one showing them to him.

“Are you going to answer or just smile like an idiot?”

“Shut up,” he mumbles. Éponine laughs. “He is…”

“Yeah, yeah, like the sun,” she mocks. “Don’t know why I asked.” They stop in front of the Musain and she squishes his face between her hands before leaning in and saying in a low, serious tone, “If he hurts you, I will crush his curly head like a bug.”

Upstairs, a game of poker has started early in one corner, and by the sound of it, Feuilly, Bahorel and Bossuet are losing shamefully to Cosette, who smiles sweetly when they come inside. Éponine gives her a curt nod. At another table, Jehan and Courfeyrac are whispering about something; Combeferre and Joly chat at a different table while Enjolras sits with them, reading something on his laptop.

Enjolras raises his eyes as they step in, sees him and mouths, “Hey”, mouth curled around a smile, and he's amazed he doesn’t melt into the floor right then and there.

“You cheated!” Bossuet shrieks, and Musichetta, on his lap, laughs uproariously.

“I can get back to work now Cosette’s wiped the floor with you, dear,” she says, kissing his cheek and disentangling herself in a graceful move.

“R!” Bahorel calls. It's physically demanding to turn his body away from Enjolras; probably best that he does it. “Wanna join us?”

“I don’t want to lose to Cosette,” he says, a hand on Bahorel’s shoulder.

“No one wants to,” Cosette says calmly. “Yet they always do.”

He and Éponine end up sitting and watching the game. His gaze wanders from time to time, but they’re all too used to it and would never mention it, of course. (Once, Enjolras is looking back; he almost thinks he imagined the way those blue eyes widened and immediately turned back to the screen.) Feuilly starts saying, amidst laughter, that they’re just letting Cosette win for introducing him and Bahorel to their new _friends_ , who are not at all their girlfriends, or so they claim; Joly and Combeferre are eventually drawn in, expanding the audience and making the game grow louder; Courfeyrac then tells them all to shut up, don’t they see he’s trying to have a _conversation_ , and is booed so viciously he agrees to take Bossuet’s place after Bossuet loses spetacurlaly. Jehan finds his way to Grantaire’s side, presses his arm briefly.  

He watches. At first, Enjolras and the game, and then—not.

(Joly, Bossuet and Jehan are drinking beer. Courfeyrac has a cocktail—vodka, he bets, his favorite; Feuilly and Bahorel are sharing a bottle of wine. Even Cosette has a glass of something golden, which she sips every time she wins a hand. His mouth is dry; his hands are clammy.)

“And how are _you_?” Jehan asks at one point.

He tries to smile back, doesn't even know what he answers.

Courfeyrac screeches when he starts losing. “Damn it, woman! Where’s Marius? I want Marius!”

(—then wraps his mouth around the straw on his cocktail and draws. Grantaire knows how it must taste, feels it on his tongue, bites the inside of his cheeks. He drank before he left home, he can’t be missing it already, not this much—)

“Marius can't help you,” Cosette is saying calmly. “He’s finishing up some work.”

“How do you not know that?” Joly laughs. “Don’t you live with him?”

Courfeyrac shrugs. “I never know if he’s working or looking at photos of Cosette.”

There’s a pause.

“Oh, _wow_ ,” Bahorel says.

“Too much information,” Bossuet says.

“Oh, fuck, I didn’t mean it like that—you know Marius, he’s just daydreaming about your walks in the park or something, though I’m sure you gave him all sorts of sexy pictures—”

Cosette punches him in the arm, red in the face and neck, and then proceeds to beat them all.

(Jehan sips his beer beside him. His hands are tingling.)

“Well, _that_ was embarrassing,” Combeferre comments cheerfully.

“Fuck this,” Courfeyrac whines. “Enj, are we having a meeting or what? Marius probably isn’t coming.”

Enjolras looks them over, then says, “We can postpone the meeting till tomorrow,” and turns his eyes back to the screen.

No one speaks for a moment. “That was a rhetorical question, oh my god,” Courfeyrac says. “Are you dying?”

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “Everyone should be here. Honestly, don’t you think I can be flexible?”

There’s a beat, then several voices speak up at the same time.

“No?”

“Of course not.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Aren’t you going to physically drag Marius into this room?” Courfeyrac presses. “Oh god—did you already try and he wouldn’t come and you killed him? Is that why you’re so focused? Are you looking up ways to hide the body?”

Enjolras gives him a look that suggests how _patient_ and _generous_ he’s being right now. “I’m _fine_ ,” he tells the room slowly. “We’ll talk tomorrow. You’re all too distracted anyway, and I have things to do.”

“Like what?” Courfeyrac wants to know.

“Like get my ass handed to me on poker. Oh, no, wait—that’s you.”

“ _En_ jolras,” Courfeyrac gasps, a hand over his heart.

Everyone’s laughing; Grantaire tries to join in. Éponine’s shooting him these _looks_ , and he slaps her leg playfully and tries to hide the uncoiling sickness churning in his stomach.

“Here,” Bossuet says, and leans over the table to put his bottle against Courfeyrac’s cheek. “For the burn.”

There’s laughter around the table, but his eyes move of their own volition and their volition always leads him to Enjolras, who’s looking at him squarely this time, studying him almosy. While everyone is distracted as a new game is proposed—he doesn’t hear what’s it called, isn’t hearing anything very well anymore—, he sees Enjolras mouth something.

“What?” he mouths back.

“I got the job,” Enjolras repeats.

Grantaire reads his lips, watches as they turn into a smile, and suddenly it’s very hard to breathe. He crushes Éponine’s wrist beneath the table.

How did he ever think he could do this? Every nerve in his body is suddenly craving a drink—and he drank before leaving home, he shouldn’t be like this, he can last way longer than this, but knowing there is alcohol so near that he can’t touch is making him shake, a familiar trembling that starts in his hands then starts going up and into him, a hunger of cold, black tendrils—he’s been here before, he knows how it works, how the nausea will overcome him, knows what he’ll _be_ like in a while. And Enjolras will know, too, how weak he is, how he couldn’t even do this, how he failed in the first day—it’s his own fault, did he really think, did he _really_ consider he was strong enough? That he could be worth Enjolras’s faith in him? I wanted to show you, he thinks desperately, I wanted to look at you and not feel like I’m crawling all the time, but he should’ve known there’s no escape from himself, he should’ve settled for what he had instead of wanting more. Now Enjolras is counting on him to keep his word, but he’ll fail. He always has.

His stomach drops; his hands are sweaty and his heart starts beating faster, blood rushing to his ears; fight-or-flight mode kicks in, unavoidable, terrifying, crushing him from every direction.

He knows it’s a panic attack but it doesn’t help at all, there’s nothing to do about the icy grip of terror slowly overtaking him—and fuck, why is _this_ particular memory suddenly in his mind? He tries to push it down desperately, but it’s there, an old fear so carefully set aside, and it starts with Joly telling stories—this was before he changed majors, when he worked as an intern and would tell about the cases he saw come through the hospital’s doors, and one day he mentions this homeless man who was brought in half-dead from drinking rubbing alcohol, tells how the poor bastard just couldn’t help himself—and it’s a throwaway comment, barely two sentences before moving on to the next topic, but he remembers feeling very, very cold, remembers feeling as if the air had been sucked out of the room, remembers not being able to sleep that night even though he avoided the thought like a plague, tried anything to erase it from his mind or dismiss it or shut his brain down, anything not to see himself broken, poisoned, dead, dead, _dead_ ; remembers muffling his cries, being so afraid and feeling so alone and thinking, this will never get better, it will only get worse; and every once in a while the fucking memory resurfaces and chokes him up.

He’s in that place again; he’s going to scream or burst into tears and he can’t bear the thought of crying in front of Enjolras or the rest of them, of ruining their night and letting them see him lose control; he feels about to lose more than control, feels he’s going to lose it _completely,_ and fuck, is this how people go insane? What if starts saying things, what if he confesses to Enjolras that he—?

There is laughter and he’s sitting there; how is it possible to just _sit_ there slowly dying?

He needs to get away. He needs to get away _right now_.

“What’s wrong?” Éponine’s voice an urgent whisper in his ear, both her hands around one of his. He needs to be alone; he can deal if he's alone, or something like it, at least. “Do you need to leave?” she asks. 

He knows he shouldn’t, but it’s stronger than him, a magnetic pull—his eyes turn to Enjolras, who’s looking at him now straight on, eyes piercing and, _god,_ is that concern in them?

“Get me out of here,” he chokes out.

Something scratching against the floor, and he’s on his feet.

“Wha—?”

He thinks it’s Courfeyrac’s voice, but he’s not sure. Éponine says something, garbled words that don’t mean anything; he’s already moving, descending familiar steps, crossing a familiar room, going out into a familiar street, where there’s air and space and no one to see him—except Éponine, who’s grabbed hold of his hand again and keeps saying things as he tries to push her away.

“Talk to me, hey, _talk to me_ —”

She won’t let go so he pulls her with him. He needs to walk, it’s the only way to get rid of this poison pooling in his gut, to sweat it out; he sets a brisk pace for a couple of blocks and then realizes that no, what he needs is a drink, right now, or he’s going to _die_ —

“You’re not going to die,” says Éponine, sure and solid and so, so much stronger than him.

Hands in his shoulders and they turn a corner and go inside another café; the same hands push him down into a stool and he hears Éponine order something, anything, that he gulps down like a drowning man—and for a moment it’s wonderful, it fills this hollow space in him that was needing _this_ and nothing else, that knows that as long as he has a bottle in hand he’ll survive. He lowers his head against his arms on the counter, feeling soothing hands on his back, hearing meaningless words whispered in his ear (and, he thinks, into a phone), and minutes go by, until the worse of the panic passes and shame sets in, leaving him functional though broken.

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing he says, head still down.

Éponine doesn’t speak; he raises his head. She’s standing by his side, hands still on his back, looking like she needs a drink herself. In fact, when she sees he can breathe on his own, she downs a beer that must be warm by now.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

She sets the beer with a thump on the counter and turns to him with eyes blazing. “Is this his fault?” she demands. “What did he say to you?”

“It’s not his fault.”

“If you’re protecting him—”

“It’s not his fucking fault,” he snaps. He regrets it immediately, but he’s so far from stable right now it’ll just be another thing to feel bad about later. He has to get all the lies out before he cracks and Éponine interprets the facts as Enjolras being responsible for Grantaire being a fuck-up, and then he knows it won’t be pretty then. “I thought I wouldn’t drink while he was there, to show him I could—I don’t know, not be _me_ for a while, thought maybe I’d have a better chance to get this to go on,” and it’s almost entirely true, too, he just doesn’t want to say he intended it to be a regular thing. “But then I started thinking that—fuck, it doesn’t matter, I just got—nervous,” he finishes lamely. What a fucking understatement. “I’m sorry I yelled.”

She narrows her eyes. “And this has nothing to do with what he said on Sunday? Or afterwards?”

“It’s got everything to do with _everything_ he’s ever said," he groans, "as if you don’t fucking know how I feel about him!” Éponine looks at him with wide eyes; he runs a hand over his face. It’s like he can’t control the words coming out of his mouth, feels brittle and ready to snap at anything.  “I’m sorry. Again. I’m just.” Shaking. Unreliable. Hurting all over. “It was me freaking out over nothing. That’s all. I’m better now.”

“Yeah, you look wonderful,” she says dryly. “You’re coming home with me.”

“No,” he says, and manages to infuse his tone with some strength. “I want to be alone.”

“I told Feuilly I’d take care of you.”

“And you have,” he assures. “But I really just want to sleep.”

“And by sleep do you mean lie awake thinking about Enjolras and why he’ll never return your feelings and all sort of dumb shit like that?”

He flinches. “Is this Tell Grantaire the Truth Week, by any chance?”

Éponine softens. “If you come with me,” she says kindly, a hand on his face, “you can still do that. You know I’ll listen.”

He’s tempted. If he was smart, he’d go with her, let her distract him and deal with the guilt later, but he is far from smart. The look Enjolras last gave him is imprinted in his mind, and a rebellious part of him is nursing, deep down, a hope he doesn’t dare put into words even to himself.

He shakes his head. When he and Éponine go separate ways, he wonders why he keeps doing this to himself.

*

His paces back and forth, scraping an open palm against the stone of the building. The night is chilly and he feels ridiculous, waiting alone in front of someone else’s building, but Grantaire appears around the corner, tussled black hair glowing softly under the streetlights, and he’s moving in a second, striding down the sidewalk before he can think it through.

His heart is hammering in his chest; he doesn’t try to understand the wave of relief washing over him. Grantaire sees him and stops dead in his tracks; red-rimmed eyes look back at his. He looks small, Enjolras thinks, and scared and sad and a hundred other things he can’t identity or interpret, a hundred things he’s always stopped himself from considering before.

“Are you all right?” he asks, a sharpness in his tone that isn’t born out of anger.

Grantaire flinches all the same. “Yes.”

He should be calm and collected, but the wait had been _interminable_. “What happened? Éponine said you were going somewhere, but—I saw your face.” He wants Grantaire to yell at him, to tell him to mind his own business, but Grantaire isn’t doing any of that—isn’t doing anything else either. With him, sometimes, it’s like pulling teeth. “You’re not supposed to get sick,” Enjolras presses.

Grantaire huffs out a laugh. “It’s not that easy,” he says, and passes a hand over his eyes, across his forehead, scratches the lower half of his face. He looks ready to drop. “It’s not like that at all. How did you know I’d come back here?”

“I didn’t,” he admits. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to stay with Éponine. I don’t know.” The truth is he really didn’t—and he only imagines what he’d say if Grantaire had really gone with Éponine somewhere, if his guess had been wrong, wonders how long he would've waited.

Grantaire’s giving him one of those inscrutable looks of his. “And why are _you_ here?” he asks, almost as if he’s dreading the answer.  

“I told you I would, didn’t I?”

He promised Grantaire he wouldn’t be alone, and already he’s failing. Grantaire never sought his friendship before, and maybe this is why—maybe he could see how bad Enjolras is at this, how he can never find the right words unless he’s defending a cause or having a fight. Grantaire is good with people—Enjolras has seen him bring Joly down from an anxiety attack with soft-spoken words, seen him cheer Marius up with jokes; Grantaire always knows what to say, and if he doesn’t he speaks anyway. Enjolras just sat there—sat among his friends even when he knew there was something wrong, which only happened because of him in the first place. And it occurs to him that maybe Grantaire felt he had to do this, for _him_ , for some reason, and he remembers all the times he’s been told he browbeats people until they do what he wants.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Grantaire gives a stunned laugh. “For what?”

He doesn’t know where to start. “Are you feeling better?”  

“Much,” Grantaire says, looking like death.

He looks Grantaire over, weariness in every line of him, and wonders what one says in moments like this. He’s not even sure what _this_ is—some uncharted, unnamed territory that he’s supposed to navigate somehow.

“Feuilly said he had a date,” he says.

The statement hangs in the air heavily—another mistake, he thinks. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Grantaire says, voice clipped and serious, weighed down by some unknown burden.

“Do what?”

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to,” Grantaire gestures back and forth between them, “ _whatever_ , because you don’t. I’ll be fine.”

A pretty clear dismissal, but Grantaire sounds as if he’s anything but fine. I can’t read you, he wants to say, you have to tell me what you want.

“I don’t feel like I _have_ to do anything,” he says. “But I told you I’d help, if you wanted me to, and to be honest I don’t know how much help I can be, but—I was planning on talking to you about that project for the group anyway, if you’re feeling up to it. And I’d like to tell you about the job, so.”

He waits. Grantaire runs a hand through his hair, looks at the pavement, shuffles his feet. He shouldn’t have pressed, he’s obviously not wanted, how could he have read this so wrong—

“God,” Grantaire murmurs, “I’d almost prefer it if you,” and doesn’t finish the thought. Instead, Grantaire breathes out a laugh and raises his eyes, looking absurdly radiant all of a sudden. “You’re really annoying, do you know that? Come on,” he says, and pulls on his sleeve, the briefest of touches, before turning to open the door.

And here it is, again—relief, mixed with something else. He follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bless you all for reading. honor on you, honor on your family, honor on your cow. any references to translation driving people insane are based on personal experience; references to carousels are based on nothing, really, idek where that came from. 
> 
> chapter 7 is my favorite, so I hope to revise it quickly. :) come say hi on [tumblr](http://sonhoedesrazao.tumblr.com)!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I planned to update much earlier, I'm sorry! Thank you so much for the lovely comments, I can't believe how many of you are reading this dsjfkjg. <3

He learns Feuilly’s schedule: Monday to Friday he's got a managing job at a supermarket, and nights and weekends, while on vacation, are spent in this record shop he used to work at before. It’s not a lot of money, Grantaire tells him, but Feuilly knows the owner and thinks it’s pretty relaxing work. Grantaire also tells him that, despite claims to the contrary, Feuilly is getting serious with his girlfriend, which is why he often skips coming home altogether. Feuilly mentions his plans during meetings, or Grantaire learns them later and sends him a text—whichever the case, nights usually end with him at Grantaire’s until it’s time for his shift. It’s a ten minute ride from Grantaire’s building to the hotel de Saint-Germain, but they usually walk, a forty-minute stroll in the tranquil, lamp lit streets of Paris. He doesn’t question it when Grantaire says, that first night, he’ll accompany him to work; a few days later, stops thinking there’s anything odd about it.

He gives up on saying anything to Combeferre and Courfeyrac, reasoning he can’t reveal Grantaire’s attempt to sobriety just to soothe his own conscience. Not only that, but spending time with his best friends starts making him increasingly uneasy, some unknown strain having crept into their rapport. Courfeyrac shouts at him once; Combeferre seems distracted all the time; he goes to Grantaire and tries to forget about it.  

Work is a mostly a dull affair, which suits him perfectly. The hotel is small and cozy, catering to families and businessmen, people that aren’t exactly seeking the wild night life of the city, so most nights nothing happens. He takes his laptop and sits on the deserted lobby, working on ABC business or reading, stopping only to hand a client his keycard or answer the phone.

His second night, his own phone chimes.

Grantaire [2:19:45]: did you know there r project runway reruns???

 _Why are you awake?_ he writes.

Grantaire [2:22:29]: SEASON 2

He snorts, a lonely sound that bounces off pictures on the walls, and asks if that’s supposed to mean anything to him. Thirty seconds later, he’s answering his phone.

“Busy?” Grantaire asks. He sounds overtly casual, but there’s something cautious beneath it. For some reason, he pictures Grantaire wringing his hands.  

They’ve never spoken on the phone, Enjolras realizes. He can’t even read Grantaire face to face, so immediately gives up trying to make sense of his inflections.

“Oh yeah,” he says, “things were wild over here. I’ve been staring at a painting of the Eiffel Tower for forty minutes.”

Grantaire huffs. “Right, as if you weren’t working on something?”

“You’ll never prove it,” he says. Grantaire laughs softly on the other side of the line. He _was_ working, but staying awake is harder than he imagined, and maybe Grantaire can’t sleep because of the—thing—so he should probably hear him out. “Turns out I'm not very productive at this hour. Isn’t that show in season 15 or something?”

“Let me tell you something about season 2 of Project Runway,” Grantaire starts, and when they hang up, 3 a.m. has come and gone.

He gets a call the third and fourth day too; when Grantaire sleeps through the fifth he tries to smother a flicker of disappointment. It’s only that staying awake all night is still hard, he reasons, he’s still adapting to his new schedule and talking with Grantaire is proving to be a good way to stay awake. But it’s good that Grantaire’s sleeping—he sounded oddly frantic at times these last few days, and that is another thought Enjolras avoids dwelling on.

But in the morning, when the doors to the lobby open at six a.m. and he raises his eyes to find Grantaire walking up to him with two Styrofoam cups, he feels slightly relieved and not as surprised, perhaps, as he should be.

Grantaire looks unsure until he takes one of the cups and gulps it down. It’s just how he likes it. He tells Grantaire this, and Grantaire seems to relax.

“Can you even be here?” he wonders after a few minutes of idle talk.

“I don’t know, can I?” Grantaire asks lightly.

“There’s nothing in the regulation explicitly telling otherwise, but—”

Grantaire laughs. “You read the entire regulation, didn’t you?”

“I—of course.”

“In case someone shows up at three in the morning demanding to know the exact circumstances in which they can use the sauna.”

“You don’t know,” he argues pettily, “it could happen.”

Knowing the regulation means he knows employees have a fifty per cent discount for guests on the restaurant, so he tells Grantaire that night not to buy coffee the next day, and pays him breakfast.

The buffet is impressive: two long tables filled with coffee and various beverages, fruits that don’t even grow in France and twenty different sorts of croissants and cakes. Grantaire barks out a laugh the first time he sees it (“Do you know the last time I ate in a _hotel_?”), so Enjolras tells him not to bother with coffee at all anymore. He doesn’t question why or whether Grantaire will come—it’s just something that happens, now, like being walked to work—and when Grantaire tries to pry how much breakfast is costing him, he tells him he better pay with artwork, to which Grantaire grumbles something about the exploitation of his artistic integrity.   

His shift ends at seven-thirty, and as there are hardly ever any guests awake before eight, they have the room—with its chandeliers and round tables, on top of which lay embroidered tablecloths and carefully rolled napkins—to themselves.

One day, he’s picking a brioche (“Be wild, Enjolras,” Grantaire will say as he pours yogurt over some wafers) when a girl from the buffet places a tray next to him.

“It’s those jam croissants from last week your boyfriend liked so much,” she says with a smile.

His mouth moves wordlessly for a moment. “He’s not my boyfriend.” He sounds like a strangled cat.

“Oh,” she gasps. “Well, he really liked them last time.”

He grabs one and takes it back to the table.

They use nights at the apartment and mornings at the hotel to talk about the posters Grantaire’s making for them. They’re beautiful pieces; Enjolras would print them in mural size if he could, wants to spread them around the varius city campuses and beyond, as part of the integration project they’ve been working on. The messages are thought out by the group, and he knows Grantaire doesn’t believe in any of it, but Enjolras thinks he enjoys the creation part, at least. “It keeps me distracted,” Grantaire says once, off-handedly. He comes up with new ideas faster than he can put them to paper.

There are other distractions beside him, he learns. Grantaire always seems to be moving these days. He works as many shifts as Musichetta will allow him, and the apartment always seems clean now when he shows up—he goes once into Grantaire’s room to get a book and thinks it’s cleaner than his own. (They have a wildly different taste in literature, as in most things. He agrees to read some absurd fantasy novel Grantaire likes and Grantaire takes up his favorite book on the Russian Revolution; they both complain endlessly about the deal, then strike up a new one after finishing both books.) Grantaire’s constant state of agitation sometimes only shimmers on the surface and sometimes leaves him fidgety and hyper, so, when they run out of work-related things to talk about, Enjolras fills it with questions, giving free reign to his curiosity and feeling a strange new elation whenever it is satisfied.

He knew that Grantaire boxed; a piece of information that was tucked in his brain somewhere and gets rediscovered when Grantaire arrives for a meeting with a dark bruise around his eye. He has to resist the urge to demand to know what happened; doesn’t have to when Bahorel walks in next looking terribly guilty and explaining it was an accident. Grantaire laughs and says it was his fault, don’t worry, he’s had worse—but when Bahorel keeps insisting on buying him drinks to make it up for it, his laugh sounds forced. He waits for Grantaire outside that night; sees his eyes widen in surprise then his mouth shape into a grin, and they walk together to his apartment. Grantaire explains it wasn’t Bahorel’s fault, really, he _was_ slow; implies it has something to do with all the drinking he’s not doing, and quickly changes the subject.

He takes the chance to pry about boxing, and ends up discovering Grantaire used to dance. A memory comes to mind, something about having _moves_ , and he blurts it out and sees Grantaire blush under the soft glow of the streetlights, though it’s hard to pinpoint the exact reason.

“I took... classes, when I was young,” Grantaire says, scratching the back of his head.

“What classes?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters.” He’s grinning; doesn’t think any of the others know about this. “Can you do a plié, for example?” Grantaire’s face twists into a grimace, and he outright laughs. “Can you _really_?”

“I did ballet for a while,” Grantaire admits, “but I’d probably hurt myself trying that now, and will you stop laughing? It’s a noble art.”

“I’m just trying to picture it.”  

“ _Please_ don’t. I was really young, I did it to spite my father, and it was way too much work, so I quit. Later I got into street dance, but it’s been years since I’ve done it.”

“You sound like you enjoyed it.”

“I did.”

“So why did you stop?”

Grantaire breaths out in the chilly night air as they turn the corner to his building. He takes out his keys and shrugs. “I stopped doing a lot of things for a while.” Enjolras doesn’t ask.

He's been swallowing almost as many questions as he asks, and most of them have to do, directly or indirectly, with Grantaire’s drinking. Grantaire doesn’t talk about it, but Enjolras knows he’s trying. He never drinks when they’re alone—not at his apartment, not at the hotel, not when he walks him to work; and, at meetings, never has more than a couple of beers, which he nurses all night.

He spends about three weeks itching to go back to the subject while simulteanously reluctant to, but one morning there’s this unmistakable fitfulness in Grantaire’s eyes—his movements are stilted and faltering, like he’s stepping on ground he can’t quite trust; and he barely eats, half-listening to Enjolras and half-lost inside his head.

“Hey,” he says, and this is much harder under the glaring lights of the restaurant than in Grantaire’s bedroom. “Are you all right?”

Grantaire’s smile is a delayed reaction. “Fantastic. Thinking of running a marathon.”

“No, you’re not,” he rolls his eyes, an answer to both statements.

Grantaire laughs, a shrill sound that sounds slightly hysterical. “I—well.” He tugs at his hair. “Maybe I should go.”

He doesn’t reach out to grab Grantaire’s wrist, though it is lying, as if in wait, between them on the table.

“Don’t,” he says. “Can I do something?”

Grantaire worries his lips for a few moments. “Oh, don’t look like that,” he says quietly, like he knows; there’s something sorrowful in his voice. “It’s just how it works, you don’t have to…” He waves. “I’ll be fine.”

He stays until his usual hour, and Enjolras wonders if Combeferre would know what to do in this situation, whether he’s being an idiot by not asking. The idea that Grantaire might need help he’s not capable of giving nags at him all day, and he sends texts every hour or so, which grow increasingly random and inane, just to make sure Grantaire is still...  _there_. That night he seems better—shoots him a smile, when no one’s looking, more enigmatic to him than the goddamn Mona Lisa—but, to his relief, doesn’t mention Enjolras’s messages at all.

They don’t talk about it after that—not when Grantaire is obviously feeling ill, not when he's obviously insistent on hearing from him. Somehow, it works; and they survive one day after the next, amazingly avoiding getting into fights.

Time moves fast, spins out of control, and as he struggles to settle into his new sleeping pattern his days seem to stretch into weeks, and his weeks seem full of Grantaire.

Then, when he thinks he finally has the hang of it, classes resume, and moments with Grantaire are some of the few in the day he has to breathe. His schedule becomes airtight: work from midnight to seven-thirty, breakfast with Grantaire, classes all morning, sleep from one to six, Musain, Grantaire, then work again. (One night he’s so out of it he walks into the café and makes a beeline for Grantaire. A sudden hush falls over the others, and Enjolras remembers they don’t do this, not around them; swallows what he was going to say and chokes out, “About the posters,” then sits and tries to think something to discuss they haven’t already gone through. Grantaire humors him, and they never talk about this, either.) He studies and plans at night, which is not ideal when he needs to talk to people and means he ends up delegating more to Combeferre and Courfeyrac. He trusts them, of course, but it makes him fret a little not to be personally on top of things.

“Control freak,” Grantaire judges accurately, a hint of fondness in his tone. He sits in one of the big, comfortable armchairs in the lobby and swivels, looking relaxed this particular morning.  

Enjolras sighs from behind the counter. (He never leaves the counter. “What if someone comes in,” he’ll say, “I can’t just be lying around!” And Grantaire will roll his eyes.) He hesitates, then makes a split-second decision—that perhaps is not that sudden, if he thinks about it—to break his self-imposed silence on the matter of the rally.

“Ever since other groups started to join us, there’s been a lot of press about it.” Grantaire should be aware; but then again, he never knows how much Grantaire pays attention during meetings. “Social media’s buzzing for months now, and _we’re_ at the head of the student movement. We’re even getting some attention from mainstream media, you know.”

“Ah, yes,” Grantaire grins. “I thought that article was quite good.”

He drops a keycard he’s been turning in his hand. “You saw that?”

“Courf sent everyone a link.” Grantaire’s smile is blinding. “Nice picture, by the way.”

“God.” He hides his face in his hands. “I don’t even know where they _got_ that.”

“I _will_ say one of your friends is responsible, but I won’t tell who.”

“If I guess, do I get to kill them?” he asks dryly.

The picture is from a protest they led last year, where he spoke to a group of a couple hundred students. The author subtitled it as “Student leader Enjolras fires up the crowd”, and he’s been trying not to think about it ever since it was published in a local news site.

“Hm,” Grantaire says. “That would fire up the crowd in an entirely different way.”

“I don’t see why they needed a picture in the first place!”

Grantaire leans back against the armchair. “Probably to draw in a bigger crowd,” he muses, and Enjolras is not quite sure how to take it, or why he flushes at the tone. “Seriously, though,” Grantaire adds, and to Enjolras’s surprise he does sound remotely serious, “stop worrying so much. You’ve got the whole organizational thing covered.  How many of these things have you done? It seems every week we’re on the streets yelling about something.”

“It’s different this time,” he argues, wondering if the strain he’s feeling shows in his voice. “This is big. It can get ugly if we don’t keep track of things, where people are, what they’re doing, how they’re dealing with the police… because there will be police. And I _know_ not everyone that confirmed is coming,” he says before Grantaire can pull out one of his favorite arguments, which is mostly a rant about Facebook and its role in contemporary life, “but it’ll still probably be more people than this city has seen gathered in a long time. There are so many different groups signing up, I can barely keep track of what we’re doing,” he mutters.

Maybe he does sound stressed, because he thinks Grantaire suddenly looks sympathetic, though that is probably absurd. Grantaire hasn’t stopped ripping him to shreds in meetings—the difference is he does it with a smile now, like he’s enjoying himself instead of being frustrated at Enjolras and his idealism, and later he’ll give a self-conscious laugh and say things like “I hope I wasn’t too hard on you back there,” which Enjolras has learned to take as an apology. At one point, he realizes he might actually _enjoy_ arguing with Grantaire.

Still, he doesn’t want to give confirmation that the plan he thought out is slowly moving beyond his control. Grantaire has been arguing for months that the more people, the more disjointed the movement will be; that every few hundred people will protest one thing and no one will get heard at all; that people will only be confused and the movement will scatter. He’s been rebutting such arguments for just as long and still stubbornly refuses to admit that Grantaire might be right, so he swallows his desire to share his qualms about the whole thing.

“It’s not just the rally,” he says instead.

“Oh?” Grantaire sits up straighter. “Is there something wrong? Enjolras?”

He’s ranted about it to Combeferre, who was there was the e-mail arrived, but his family is a touchy subject that the rest of the group has known for a long time not to bring up. He doesn’t know why he’s offering this to Grantaire, who’s only had snide remarks about his relationship with his parents—and he remembers every word, even when Grantaire’s mocking ones about his political opinions are long forgotten—but he feels it’s the only way to test this, this thing they have— _are_ —whatever, and maybe even figure out what it is.

“My cousin’s getting married,” he says.

Grantaire narrows his eyes. “How dare he?”

“My parents want me to go to the wedding,” he clarifies. “But my cousin’s a bigoted imbecile.”

“Ah,” Grantaire says. “Are you going?”

“I told them I wouldn’t. They... didn’t take it very well.”

“It’s stupid,” Grantaire says carefully, “the whole family thing. Like you owe anything to these people you see maybe once a year.”

“Exactly,” he agrees promptly, and because he’s still pissed off about the whole thing, ends up rambling for the better part of an hour, finding Grantaire strangely in agreement with his sentiments, and then apologizes when it occurs to him Grantaire probably doesn’t care about any of this.

“It’s all right,” Grantaire says, the words shaping into a soft smile.

He never complains when Enjolras talks. It’s disconcerting; when they’re fighting, he can barely get a word in. He feels good that day, discovers talking with Grantaire about this is different than with any of the others—he doesn’t offer many details, but Enjolras has always suspected he’s not on the best terms with his own parents, and Grantaire hints that's really the case. He saves the information in a corner of his mind—the same corner that remembers Grantaire likes to dance and what his favorite books are and snippets of his past—and feels oddly confident he’ll hear more about it later, when Grantaire is ready. Enjolras is nothing but obstinate, after all.

The closer the rally looms on the horizon, less time there seems to be left for anything. As usual, problems pop up when they think they finally have everything under control (“Don’t freak out, but there’s this Facebook group for people who want to make homemade bombs”), and ten days before the protest he absolutely has to meet with a student leader on the other side of the city. This cuts right through his five daily hours of sleep, and he has to skip a meeting, arriving late at Grantaire's. They watch the news and he complains about the state of the world while Grantaire sketches beside him, and he manages to stay awake, somehow.

“It’s Julie’s birthday next week,” Grantaire says about one of the girls from the staff. “How dumb is it to give her a drawing?”

He’s not sure when Grantaire started trusting him enough to show him his work but at one point he just seemed to stop minding it; he sometimes find sketches in the middle of his things, or left at the hotel counter—unfinished, skillful pictures of people and places they both know. Now Grantaire casually turns the sketchbook so Enjolras can see what he’s been working on, and sure enough, that’s the girl from the buffet.

He remembers seeing Grantaire observe her a while ago, a focused look in his eyes, like he was mentally tracing her. (Later, he’s told that’s pretty accurate, and starts noticing the same look directed at a number of things.) She’s a pretty girl, but Grantaire made her lovely: even in the colorless sketch, she looks radiant.

“She’ll love it,” he says earnestly, and watches a flush spread over Grantaire’s face.

It’s when they part ways that the problem starts. He has to keep blinking not to doze off, and his eyes start watering after a couple of hours in front of his laptop screen. When the expected message from Grantaire arrives, he’s feeling sluggish.

Grantaire [2:20:12]: When did you last sleep?

He hesitates, then writes, _I had to meet an uni group today_.

Grantaire doesn’t reply, which is well, he thinks, because Grantaire should be sleeping instead of keeping him entertained. Several minutes pass, then Enjolras hears the door being pushed. He turns, and is filled a sudden, sharp pleasure at sight of Grantaire.

“You need sleep,” Grantaire says, like he’s just continuing their texting.

“I—what are you doing here?”

It’s almost three in the morning and Grantaire is getting behind the counter expertly, ignoring the question. “Sleep,” he says.

“I can’t sleep.” He yawns. “I’m working.”

Grantaire looks at him like he’s being difficult on purpose. A few minutes later he is out, head against the inner shelf of the counter, arm grazing dangling keycards. He wakes up groggily, with a crick in his neck. Grantaire is crouched in front of him, a hand on the floor and another on the shelf, an apologetic smile on his lips.

“Sorry. Your shift’s almost up.”

He startles awake. “You stayed here until—”

“No one showed up,” Grantaire assures him, scratching the back of his neck. “And I, um, used your computer. Hope you don’t mind.”

He blinks a couple of times. “That’s okay.”

Later, he turns on his laptop and finds that his speech for the rally has been revised, comments left on the margins with suggestions, examples and even compliments, masked by a thin coat of sarcasm (“You almost convinced me there”). There are also two playlists saved on his desktop, “Songs for Revolution” and “Songs for Staying Awake”—a reply, no doubt, to a recent argument. He puts them on his iPod.

“I need new stuff,” he tells Grantaire a couple of days later.

Grantaire snorts and rolls his eyes, but before they leave there’s a new folder on his desktop—“Songs I’m Too Lazy to Look for Myself”.

“You’re the one who says I have bad taste,” Enjolras points out as they move through nighttime Paris.

“You have _no_ taste,” Grantaire counters. “You’re like an elevator music box.”

“I’m a blank slate,” he corrects, “Better than being fixated on a handful of bands.”

“It’s not fixation, it’s _loyalty_ to the only ones who ever stood by me.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Don’t forget the songs that made you cry, and the songs that saved your life?”

Grantaire pivots like he’s been shot by a sling; they stop in the middle of the street. It’s deserted, like the city is theirs for the taking. There’s an incredulous smile on Grantaire’s face, his eyes are positively gleaming; Enjolras has never seen him so utterly delighted.

“You listened!”

“You wouldn’t shut up about them,” he says. Grantaire’s favorite band is The Smiths, about whom Enjolras knew less than nothing, which didn't seem to surprise Grantaire. He conspicuously didn’t put them in his playlists, but Enjolras had downloaded several albums weeks ago. It’s not exactly to his taste, but it’s Grantaire’s _favorite band in the world_ , and their songs _speak_ to him, et cetera—so he listened. Wanted to know what _speaks_ to Grantaire.

“So?” Grantaire prompts.

“I can see why you like them,” he says.

“I—what’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“They’re very dramatic.”

“I’m not dramatic!” Grantaire screeches. Enjolras raises an eyebrow, and Grantaire ends up laughing, though he’s clearly trying not to. “Shut up. Also, of course you don’t understand The Smiths, I didn’t expect you to.”

“Oh, I’m _sorry_ , why is it exactly that I can’t be part of your special snowflake club?”

“Because,” Grantaire says, tugging at his sleeve to get them walking again, “it’s a club of lonely, depressed teens whose only solace is a dark room filled with Morrissey.”

“I stand corrected. You’re not dramatic at _all_.”

“Could you _try_ not to be an asshole for a minute, please?” Grantaire says politely, joining both hands as if in prayer. Enjolras elbows him, and he leaps out of the way. “Like I said, you wouldn’t understand. I bet you skipped through the awkward years, straight on your path to saving the world,” and there’s no malice or sarcasm in his voice, like that’s really what he imagines Enjolras’s childhood to have been like. “Meanwhile, there was me,” and he gives a self-deprecating laugh.

He makes a humming, noncommittal sound. “I liked some of them, though.” Maybe they speak to him as well. Maybe _these_ are his awkward years. Maybe they just remind him of Grantaire, windows to a broader understanding of him, and that’s what drives him back to them when he’s alone at night, tired and on edge for so many reasons. “What’s your favorite?”

Grantaire snorts. “No way I’m telling. You’ll start with the psychobabble.” And no cajoling convinces him to, so Enjolras just wonders.

One morning, two days before the rally and five weeks into his working life, Grantaire says to him between bites of a croissant, “Ponine has summoned me for this _thing_ at her place tonight, since there’s no official meeting.”

“Oh,” Enjolras says. He crushes down his immediate reaction, because it’s completely uncalled for. “See you tomorrow, then?”

“Bright and early,” Grantaire says.

He leaves the Musain that night and is halfway to Grantaire’s apartment before he realizes what he’s doing.

*

Éponine opens the door with an oddly blank look on her face, and that should have been the first sign.

“Come in,” she says, and when he does, sees there are now five people crammed into her shoebox of an apartment, as Courfeyrac, Jehan and Bahorel are on squeezed on the couch, all sporting unreadable, grim looks. He feels his skin crawl.

“Sit,” Éponine says.

He doesn’t budge. “What is this?”

“We want to talk to you,” she says.

Courfeyrac’s staring at the carpet, Bahorel keeps cracking his knuckles and Jehan is giving him a sympathetic look.

“About?” he asks, in a clipped tone.

“Will you sit down?” Éponine insists, arms crossed. She stands at a distance, yet is conspicuously between him and the door.  

“No,” he shoots back. “Why am I here?”

She said she wanted to see him, and he must have been really out of it not to glimpse there was something odd about it. Éponine _lied_ to him, he thinks; he’s not seeing Enjolras tonight for _this_ —whatever this is, and he doesn’t want to find out.

The others share a quick look, then Jehan says, “We’re worried about you,” in a tone of voice you might use to calm a frightened animal. “We just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

Bahorel clears his throat. It’s disconcerting to see him embarrassed. “We want to talk about what you’re, um, doing.”

He looks at them lined up in front of him and can’t help himself, he bursts into laughter. He’s laughing as he crosses the room, laughing when he plops down onto the chair clearly set apart for him, laughing as he passes a shaky hand over his eyes and places his elbows on his legs.

“R,” Éponine starts.

“This is great,” he says. “You did the whole thing, you know, put together a small group of my close friends. Did you lot draw the last straw? Jesus.” Laughter has left him completely. He doesn’t know why there’s a lump in his throat. “What is it that you think you know, then?” he tries to ask casually.

Bahorel stares him squarely. “You think we wouldn’t notice that you went from drinking like you did to having a couple of beers a night?”

That’s exactly what he thought, actually. Rather, he didn’t think about it all, didn’t realize there were people tracking his movements, didn’t imagine anyone would be paying attention.

“We want to help,” Courfeyrac says.

Jehan nods. “We’re happy you’re… cutting back. But Joly says,” and good, Joly’s in it too, another stone settles sickeningly inside him, “that you can get sick if you push yourself too hard, if you don’t have people looking after you. Feuilly says he hasn’t been spending much time at home,” and Feuilly too, of course, is anyone not in on this? “He's worried. He says you look really rough lately and that you haven’t been eating right. That you’ve been running yourself down.”

That’s a more apt description than Feuilly probably realized. Yes, fine, he hasn’t been eating well—how can he, when he feels nauseous all the fucking time—and yes, he’s spent more time on the gym than ever before and yes, sometimes, when the craving is so bad he wants to give up, he literally runs, runs until he’s so worn out he’ll fall asleep. And that is another daily battle—he doesn’t remember the last time he got an full night’s sleep; not dealing with insomnia seems like a distant dream, as does not feeling like he’s out of control. He feels it bubbling inside him now, frustration and anger and the awareness of future regret, but that doesn’t stop him from snapping.

“Is this a reverse intervention, then? Do you want me to drink _more_ , is that it?”

Courfeyrac leans forward, an intent look in his face. “We want to help you. You don’t have to do this alone.”

And he doesn’t understand why his palms are sweaty, why he’s feeling trapped by these lovely, wonderful people, his friends, and they love him, and he wants to run. With Enjolras, it’s all part of the same whirlwind of fear and love and panic and desire that comes as a package whenever Grantaire is near him; with Enjolras, he never had a choice. It’s just the condition for this thing they have going, this thing he doesn’t dare put a name or attach hopes to, this thing that makes him go home and think about Enjolras and keep to his goal, even when it hurts, even when he’s heaving over a toilet and shaking and scared, because morning will lead him to Enjolras, every time he makes it he earns one more day starting and ending with him.

And he looks over at his friends and realizes, a taut chord inside him finally snapping, that he always expected to fail. Somehow he locked that part of him away for months while living out this fantasy—his world suddenly brightened, the darkness pushed to the edges—but he always knew it would end, and when it did, everything would vanish at once: he’d go back to drinking, back to being without _him_ , and no one would have to know. No harm done.

But here they are, congratulating him, for something he did as a means to keep Enjolras close, selfish in the worst way. Even if it meant keeping Enjolras chained by guilt and obligation— even then, he thinks, he would have done anything. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. Enjolras said that, once, probably didn’t even know how right he was.

They think he’s being strong. It's a joke.

“R?” Jehan calls.

He gets up; his voice is flat. “Sorry you got your hopes up, but you got the wrong idea.”

Jehan’s up now too; he moves to sidestep him. He can’t bear to be touched right now. A familiar sickness is rearing its head at him. 

“What do you mean?” Jehan asks softly.

He just shakes his head. He could never say any of it to them; there are so many levels of wrongness to him and everything he does, and here they are, offering help. He can’t do this to them as well; he can’t disappoint _everyone_. 

“I’ve tried it before,” he blurts out, looking wildly around the room, “and it didn’t stick either. I’m sorry, I am, if I could be anything other than this I would, I swear, but it’s—” It’s hard to get the words out; his voice is already cracking. He will not allow himself to cry. “You got it wrong, all right? Just—please don’t talk to me about this anymore.”

“No,” Éponine says, “we won’t ignore it.”

“Why not?" And the harshness if back. "You’ve done a pretty good job of it until now.” They flinch. “Just keep ignoring it. I’m alive, aren’t I?”

“For now.”

He freezes, drawing in a shaky breath. There is tension in every line of Éponine's face.

“What?”

“Ép,” Courfeyrac calls.

“Last time,” she tells him, undeterred. “Last time you did this I was there. Do you even remember? I found you in your apartment. I thought you had alcohol poisoning, you were barely conscious. But then you told me what you’d done, and I. I didn’t know what to do. So I let you—” 

He doesn’t remember seeing Éponine that night; he doesn’t remember any of it. Only in the morning he woke up with a bottle by the bed and realized he’d given up, and then it was easy to keep giving up.

Éponine saw him. He’s going to be sick.

“You have to promise me—”

“I won’t promise anything.”

What’s the point? He can’t keep any promises, not to himself and not to others, a deep-seethed certainty that weighs him down like lead.

“We’re not trying to pressure you into anything,” Jehan says. “We just thought it would help to know we’re here.”

And the words echo Enjolras’s so well he could cry. Yes, he thinks, this is what you’d expect, that a loving group of people offering support would be helpful—but it isn’t, is it? Not to him. It crosses his mind that Enjolras knew that Grantaire didn’t want to tell anyone, and wouldn’t he like to know how well he read Grantaire? And a shiver runs down his spine, because how will he face Enjolras when he fails? You won’t, he thinks, he won’t be around after you fuck up—and a voice in his head whispers, the longer you wait, the harder it will be.

“Please don’t leave,” Éponine pleads. 

“You don’t have to worry,” he says. They look entirely unconvinced. “Fine, I don’t _want_ you to worry, all right? I survived this far and I'll keep surviving.”

“Surviving is not exactly the ideal,” Bahorel says, surprisingly gentle and accurate.

No, he thinks. But does he even know how to do anything else? It seems living comes so easily to them, while he’s always struggling to stay afloat. The last few weeks have been the hardest and the best of his life, but they were just an interlude. There are some fundamental things you can’t change about yourself. A word comes to his mind—hopeless, he thinks, he's hopeless in so many ways.

“I can’t talk about this anymore,” he confesses in one breath. If they dig any deeper, he’s going to shatter. “Please don’t come after me.”

Éponine calls him every fifteen minutes after that, and he keeps telling her the same things, in the same voice, even when his blood is mixed with alcohol.

*

Apollo [7:30:12]: Where are you?

Apollo [7:48:32]: Are you at Éponine’s?

Apollo [8:12:46]: Is everything ok?

[2 missed calls]

*

His first class is Comparative Politics. It’s the day before the rally, and Enjolras _likes_ this class. Yet the professor’s words are leaving no imprint in his brain, and he only manages to sit still for about five minutes, turning his phone in his hand, before picking up his bag and leaving the classroom in a rush.

He tries Grantaire’s number again and again, and tells himself he’s being an idiot, everything is fine, Grantaire probably just overslept (only he wakes with the sun, Enjolras knows), and it’s not like he’s legally bound to show up to greet him every morning (even though he always does). Everything is _fine_.

He opens the door—he has a key now; hasn’t needed an invitation for a while, just walks in whenever he wants—, climbs the steps two at a time, reaches Grantaire’s floor and knocks on the door, two, three, ten times.

Let him just be late, he thinks, please let him be at work or sleeping, please—

The door opens, revealing a disheveled Grantaire, eyes bloodshot and blank. He’s wearing a frayed t-shirt and sweatpants, hair sticking up every other way.

All the air goes out of him. “Did you lose your fucking phone?”

“No,” Grantaire says, voice thin and stunned.

“Then why the hell didn’t you answer?” He’s shouting. His hands are shaking with relief and anger and he doesn’t even know what else. “I’ve been calling you all morning!”

“Maybe I wanted to see what you’d do,” Grantaire says off-handedly, as if he really doesn’t know the reason why.

He’s hangover, maybe still drunk. Enjolras knows with a sinking certainty he hasn’t slept tonight. I waited for a message, he thinks, I waited for you, I was worried sick.

“What, that’s it? That’s all you have to say?” He walks past Grantaire, into the apartment that’s become so familiar to him. “Where the hell is Feuilly?”

“He put me to bed and left for work,” Grantaire says. “He was a bit late to stop me. Not that he could.”

Enjolras waits for something that isn’t coming. “Are you going to, I don’t know, give me an explanation for this?” 

“Do I owe you one?”

He flinches.

“You were drinking,” he says.

“Yes,” Grantaire confirms, and his mask of indifference contorts into a grimace. “Disappointed?”

Maybe he is, but it is buried underneath so many other things he can barely distinguish the emotion.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“You _are_ disappointed,” Grantaire says slowly, like he’s discovered something very interesting, the answer to an important question. “Why the fuck would I call you? You couldn’t have done anything.”

And the statement makes his heart skip a beat. Of course I could, he thinks automatically. That’s what he’s been doing, isn’t it? Helping?

“You should’ve called me,” he says through gritted teeth.

Grantaire’s shaking his head, that humorless grin in place. “Yeah? And you would’ve made it all better? You would’ve fixed me? It’s that you came all the way here, to see if there was still time to save your latest project?”

“You’re being unfair.”

Grantaire starts pacing from one side of the room to the other, concentrated energy and agitation, and Enjolras hasn’t heard so much anger and spite and pain in his voice since before all of this—maybe not even then, not like this.

“You think I would see you suddenly not want a drink anymore? Do you think that just because you’re _you_ —that you’d deign to look at me and I’d suddenly be healed?”

“What does that even _mean_?” he yells. “I never thought I was going to magically make everything better, but if you weren’t fine, you should’ve told me!" He gestures helplessly between them. "What the hell is _this_ all about if not that?” 

Grantaire inhales sharply, like something has crashed into him, and gives the bitterest laugh he’s ever heard. “Fine? I’m so far from fine it’s ridiculous. Of course I’m not fine. What did you want me to say, that I’m not sleeping, that I feel sick all the time, that I want to give up? I couldn’t tell you that, not to you, don’t you understand—how can you still not _understand_?”

“I don’t!” he shouts and fuck, this is so frustrating, not knowing, he hates it so much. “Telling me is exactly what you should’ve done! I was there, you knew I didn’t want you to make yourself sick and now you make me feel like—” Like it’s his fault, like he should’ve realized how Grantaire was feeling, like he’s useless. “I was there for you, exactly for this!”

“Ah, yes,” Grantaire breathes out. “You were there to help me through this.” He doesn’t understand why the words sound so bitter. “And the worst part? I thought you would magically heal me too, you know, I honestly did. But it turns out _this_ is me, Enjolras, not whatever version of me you created in your head, and maybe I tricked you into thinking otherwise but you had to know on some level that I’d fuck this up. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

He’s fought with Grantaire hundreds of times, but it has never hurt like this; he looks and searches for _something_ and thinks, this is not you. I _know_ you.

“You’re just scared.” And he can’t explain why it sounds like he’s talking about more than just the drinking.

“Yep,” Grantaire agrees with a twisted smile, “that’s me. Now you know. Well, you always knew, I’m a coward, remember?” And this is unfair too, that was before _everything,_ and Enjolras didn’t even mean it then. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe.”

“What?”

“No one knows you tried and failed.”

“I wasn’t trying to _succeed_!” he exclaims. “I wanted you to get better!”

“Of course you did, it must be horrible having to deal with me being around all the time, going to your meeting and tarnishing your dreams of revolution and justice with—this,” he gestures around himself. “I didn’t tell them,” he adds, quietly. “I wanted to tell someone so badly. But I knew you’d hate it. I knew you’d—“

“You know everything, then,” Enjolras says, dripping sarcasm. “Come on, tell me what I hate or don’t hate, tell me what I wanted to do, since you can read my mind.”

“I know you better than you think,” Grantaire says, but there’s a hint of doubt in his voice.

“Well, I thought I knew you, so maybe we were both wrong.”

The words come out of him like a knife. How dare Grantaire say he couldn’t have helped, how dare he make Enjolras worry like this, make his heart pound uncontrollably in his chest and then claim to know it?

Grantaire breaths for a few moments as if the air around him is thin. Then he takes a step forward, eyes boring into Enjolras like he’s signing his own death sentence. 

“I know you didn’t tell anyone.”

“Tell what?” he asks, though he knows.

Grantaire snickers. “You know. Everyone. Our friends. You didn’t even tell Combeferre, did you?”

“I assumed you wouldn’t want them to know—”

“That was _after_ and you know it,” Grantaire snaps. “You know what I’m fucking talking about, and I was fine with it, I would’ve been fine with _anything_ , but I couldn’t help but wonder, maybe he’s putting up with you because he made a promise, and now he feels he has to stick around and make sure you don’t drink himself into an early grave. That would look bad. He thinks everyone can be saved.”

“We’ve had this conversation,” he says.

Grantaire doesn’t seem to hear him. “So tell me, if I had actually managed to get sober, would you ever have spoken to me again? Or would you just be glad to be free? Then you wouldn’t have to have me hanging about all day?”

The accusations hit Enjolras faster than he can process them. Everything is wrong again, off-center, the pieces not quite fitting, something unsaid and unacknowledged beneath Grantaire's words. 

He digs his nails into his palms. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“That’s probably a good thing,” Grantaire says casually, then adds, “This is good too. Now you know you made a mistake. But don’t worry, no harm done.”

This can’t be happening, he thinks. It’s been _one_ night. He remembers how they laughed yesterday, the messages they exchanged until the afternoon—now the Grantaire he has come to know is gone, and perhaps never had need of Enjolras at all. He didn’t understand him before; he doesn’t now. The difference is he desperately wants to. There’s a lump in his throat, he’s biting the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes blood.

“I fucking hate when you drink,” he whispers helplessly.

Grantaire looks like he’s about to fall, and right away he thinks, I’m sorry, we can fix this, I can take that look off your face. He wants to—he sees the movement now, like in a movie, like in a dream, all it would take is a few steps—he could fix this, if only Grantaire shows he wants him to.

But Grantaire doesn’t give what he hopes for, suddenly, with a force so staggering it makes him dizzy.

“You’re off the hook, Enjolras,” he says instead. “I’m not your problem anymore.”

He stumbles out the door. He doesn’t feel his legs move as he walks away from the building, can’t tell if it’s hot or cold outside, can’t feel anything for a long time—and then feels _everything_ , all at once, and it’s unbearable. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked that, it's sort of my favorite chapter. Work is getting in the way of revision, but I'll do my best to update asap. Come say hi on [tumblr](http://sonhoedesrazao.tumblr.com)!


	8. Chapter 8

“Your face will get stuck like that, you know,” Courfeyrac says, then grabs his shoulders and shakes him. “Come on, this is great! Aren’t you proud?”

He is. It’s a lovely day; blues and oranges mix in a cloudless sky, like the city is giving them their blessing, and the numbers coming in—he’d hoped, been keeping up with the news and the buzz for the past few months, but can hardly believe the estimates now. Tens of thousands, Marius is saying, moving towards the Invalides from different points of the city. He can hardly believe his own _eyes_. Everyone he turns, people filling the esplanade after their call, and not just students, either, not by a long shot; everywhere, signs and banners and white shirts, cellphone cameras and TV crews, raised hands, chanting and applause greeting the speaker on the platform and others he sees in the distance, on top of cars and other improvised stages. It’s overwhelmingly beautiful; his heart lifts at the sight.

Yet it doesn’t soar, something weighing it down. A few months ago, he wouldn’t have thought there was anything that could damp this—a few months ago there was nothing but the rally, and the group, and fighting for the world he wants to see rise, for the dream that has been in his mind and his heart since he can remember. And now the day is here, and his mind is not as clear as it should, his heart not as entirely committed. He’s not sure how long he’s been imagining this day with Grantaire in it, but it shouldn’t bother him so much that he isn’t. Tens of thousands; Marius checks his phone and gives him a truly astonishing figure. He’s holding a beaming Cosette by the hand, and Enjolras scans the crowd for a face he knows he won’t find.

“The others?” he asks.

“All reports from the front are peaceful, oh captain,” Courfeyrac says brightly. “Feuilly and Ponine are keeping Bahorel in check, Chetta and her guys are crossing the Luxembourg, and Jehan says he and Ferre are about to cross the river.” Then he stops, apparently aware of a glaring absence in that list, and looks at Marius and Cosette.

“Has anyone heard from Grantaire?” Cosette breaks the silence, her tone casual.

There’s a moment of silence, then Enjolras says, “He’s not coming”—at the exact same time as Courfeyrac.

He turns sharply. “How do you know?”

Courfeyrac leans away, like his glare is physically pushing him backwards, then narrows his eyes. “How do _you_ know?”

He has a speech to give; he doesn’t have time for this, and he doesn’t have time for careful calculations. All three of them are looking at him intently, and he says, “We had a fight yesterday.”

“What? Really?” Courfeyrac asks. “Wait—what time exactly?”

“What does it matter _what time_?”

“I want to know if it was before or af—” Courfeyrac’s eyes widen and he presses his lips shut.

Enjolras fixes him with a look that is known for making grown men cower. “Before or after _what_?”

Courfeyrac glances at the other two. Marius just shakes his head.

“We thought it’d be best not to tell everyone right now,” Cosette says.

There’s a crowd around them, young men and women, parents with kids, a platform raised for the speakers. They’ve organized this whole thing, and now they’re standing here discussing Grantaire, and he makes no move to leave.

“Tell everyone _what_?”

“We sort of tried talking to him,” Courfeyrac says. “About his drinking. It didn’t go very well, so I thought…”

He has to breathe slowly a couple of times. Something icy drops in his stomach, and comes through in his tone. “What did you _say_ to him?”

“He’s been cutting down lately,” Courfeyrac explains, looking anxious. “We were just worried he was pushing himself too hard. We wanted to let him know we were there for him.”

He would’ve hated that, Enjolras thinks, and it dawns on him how strange it is that he should know this about Grantaire, when the others didn’t. This must be what set Grantaire off, what made him relapse, and he tries to smother a terrible happiness over the fact it was not about _him_ , that Grantaire didn’t just begin hating him all of a sudden—at the same time he tries to control this new worry and whatever it is he’s feeling towards his friends, a mix of anger and betrayal.

“Enjolras?” Courfeyrac asks, a hand on his shoulder.

“He was drinking yesterday, so that didn’t work very well,” he snaps. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Enjolras, come on,” Courfeyrac says, shuffling his feet. “You’re not exactly… It seemed better not to involve you, for now.”

Not to _involve_ him—a laugh dies on his lips. In his head, he’s been there for Grantaire for months, been the one who sees him every day, who knows by his tone when he’s craving a drink, who sees in his face when he’s on the brink of a panic attack; the one who talks and argues with him, who makes him laugh more often than not, who gives him things to draw so he’ll be distracted, who buys him breakfast, who introduces him at work; the one who made Grantaire start this in the first place. And Grantaire was right—he didn’t tell anyone, to the point where his friends aren’t aware something has shifted drastically in his life, to the point where didn’t _tell_ him, and it’s his fault that they sprung this on Grantaire.

The grip on his arm gets harder. Courfeyrac sounds distant and vaguely worried. “Enjolras?”

Marius just sounds suspicious. “Wait, when did you even see R? He didn’t go to the café.”

“This morning,” he bites out.

“Where?”

“His apartment,” he snaps. “Any more questions?”

Marius looks as if he’s got a million more questions, but something in Enjolras’s face must be truly frightening, because he doesn’t say another word. Cosette pulls his sleeve and Marius splutters, “We’ll just—leave you two alone,” and the both of them move away, mingling with the rest of the crowd. With the noise surrounding them, it’s enough to give them some privacy.

He questions whether he wants any when Courfeyrac asks, point-blank, “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

They went to Grantaire, he thinks, and betrayal burns inside him. “Want to tell me why Ferre is halfway across town,” he shoots back, “why it seems impossible to get the two of you in the same place lately?”

Courfeyrac winces, and he doesn’t even know if he feels bad or not. There’s something dark and desperate uncoiling inside him, something new that’s clouding all his normal responses. Courfeyrac is tugging at his hair, mouth working wordlessly.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I’m just worried about—about you.”

“We’re worried about you,” Courfeyrac counters amiably, putting on a smile. It’s unclear who’s the _we_ here; he prefers not to know. “Also about R. Everyone’s worrying about everyone else, it seems. It’s like we’re all grown up or something. Do you really not want to talk about whatever’s going on?”

“Do you?”

Courfeyrac gives a humorless laugh that turns into a groan. “Have you ever dug yourself a hole so deep you just wonder why you didn’t just _stop_ when you had the chance?”

Something like that laugh comes out of him too, but it is smothered by a surge of applause that rises up around them. Right—the speaker. They can't do this here.

“We’re in the middle of,” he gestures around them helplessly; rubs his eyes, takes a deep breath. His heart is racing for no discernible reason. Fuck, what’s happening to him? “I have a speech to give,” he reminds Courfeyrac.

He has a speech to give—Grantaire revised it for him—and a rally to keep track of and he’s never been this _furious_ at himself. He doesn’t understand why he can’t do what he’s always done and compartmentalize things, leave Grantaire in a corner of his mind while the rest of him focus on what matters; all he knows is that his strategies are falling today, something in him shouting that the _rest_ matters too, and it seems impossible to reconcile the two halves of himself. He has always known what is important—it has driven him to what he is, to everything he’s achieved, to this very day—and today of all days part of him is rebelliously trying to drive him away from all that, whispering that maybe there are other things that matter too, that maybe he can allow himself to have them. That maybe he should. He wishes he’d had this realization somewhere that is not right here and now; preferably before he fucked things up with Grantaire.

“Right, revolution first, feelings later,” Courfeyrac nods with determination. “Don’t worry, you’ll be great. Make us proud—people will be watching, you know.”

They managed to set up a live feed of different points of the city; thousands are watching from their homes, from different countries, even. He’ll be online to whoever cares to hear him. He feels slightly hopeful and slightly sick at once. This is no way to live, he thinks, then resolutely pushes everything that is not this rally to the back of his mind. You’re in control, he tells himself stubbornly, closing his hands into fists.

“Come on,” he says to Courfeyrac, “let’s do this.”

*

“Hello, yes, still alive here, just like an hour ago.” He waits a moment. “Éponine?”

“Don’t freak out,” comes the voice over the phone.

On the background, the sound of cars and a humming noise of people talking and moving about. He was sprawled on the couch, staring at nothing and trying to think about less, but now sits up with a jolt, gripping the phone until his knuckles turn white.

“You know that’s the worst possible thing you can say to a person, right?”

Her voice is clipped. “You’re not watching the feed, are you?”

“Not anymore,” he says. She’ll know what he means. Outside, the weather looks bleak—the sky turned gray a couple of hours back, and there are clouds amassing. He wasted the entire day feeling sorry for himself. Not even the light buzz he had achieved after several drinks has managed to lighten his mood, and now he’s grasped by an unnamed, unnamable fear. “ _Éponine_?”

“There were these assholes, they were probably drunk—or maybe not, I don’t know,” and fuck, he knows it’s bad when Éponine is babbling. “They started shouting at the police, and things got a bit ugly—”

“Are you hurt?” he asks sharply.

“No.”

“For fuck’s sak—”

“Bossuet got hit and fell,” she says in a rush. “Chetta, Joly and I are at the hospital. It’s nothing serious, just a broken arm, and they want to keep him around to make sure he doesn’t have a concussion. Courf said he, Marius and Cosette left all right.  Feuilly had left earlier, he’ll be fine. I don’t know about Bahorel.”

He is going to _kill_ her if she doesn’t follow that up this very second with—

“Enjolras helped us bring Bossuet to the hospital,” she says.

And he doesn’t even try to hold the gasp of relief that is wrenched out of him. “He’s with you now?” he blurts out. Why didn’t she say earlier?

“He left as soon as they took Bossuet in,” Éponine says quietly.

“Left?” It makes no sense, why would he leave? “To go where? Back to the _protest_?” he says shrilly.

“I hope not, he was already—um.”

And that half-sentence has just taken five years out of his life expectancy. “Already was _what_?”

“Nothing—he was fine, just upset, I think, about the rally going south. Some people got pepper sprayed, other were taken in, it was a mess. I’ll call if you I get any news, don’t worry,” she says, and hangs up.

 _Don’t worry_. Enjolras is out somewhere doing who-knows-what and she says _don’t worry_. He repeats it in his head like a mantra as he mechanically gets out of pajamas pants and into jeans and pulls a sweatshirt over his head. _Don’t worry_ —he will go through every goddamn street in Paris, he will interrogate every fucking idealist imbecile protester in sight, and he will _find_ him. Don’t worry. Éponine will hear _words_ when he next sees her.   

He feels somewhat lightheaded as he pulls open the door, and freezes when he finds Enjolras on the other side, right hand raised as if to knock.

A breath catches in his throat. Enjolras is a mess, his hair plastered with sweat over his forehead, dirt in his white shirt, scratches in his arms. A trickle of blood drips down the side of his face.

Grantaire grabs the doorframe.

“Did you drive here?” His voice cracks.

“Walked,” Enjolras says.

“I’ll call a cab, take you to the hospital.”

“I’m fine.”

His voice is borderline hysterical. “There’s _blood_ coming out of your _head_.”

“I’m fine,” Enjolras repeats, more forcefully, and wipes his left cheek; his hand comes off tinged red. “I didn’t come here for you to take me somewhere else,” he murmurs.

“Fuck’s sake,” he breathes out, and pulls Enjolras inside.

His mind is blank as he drags Enjolras to the bathroom and all but pushes him onto the sink; to his surprise, Enjolras lets himself be led. He looks down on Grantaire, perched like that, and peers at him with a frown.

“Were you going out?” Enjolras asks.

He barks out a laugh. “Sort of.” He looks at Enjolras for a moment, frozen. “You’re bleeding.” Fuck, what does he _do_?

His hands shake as he grabs a clean towel from the cabinet and wets it on the sink, shake as he presses it gently against Enjolras’s temple. The cut isn’t deep, but it’s still pouring blood. He rinses the towel, wets it again, presses again. The only sound in the bathroom is his heavy breathing. Enjolras looks a little dazed, but completely unfazed by his injury.

“I shouldn’t have come without calling,” Enjolras says. It sounds like a question.

“You shouldn’t have got yourself hurt,” he counters, more harshly than he intended. He puts the towel down and takes out a few paper towels, which he hopes will still the bleeding. “I’m calling Combeferre,” he announces, pressing the towels against the cut. “Hold this.”

Enjolras puts a hand above his.

He makes a drowning noise in the back of his throat. Enjolras’s touch is light, but his fingers are covering Grantaire’s fingers and parts of him start crumbling, like a row of dominoes. This is unfair, he thinks. He’s not even properly drunk. Enjolras has his head bowed, and standing as he is it would be so easy to lean in and burrow his face into the crook of his neck, put his arms around his waist and—hold him, keep him. He could stay there for so long. Enjolras was bleeding but he is the one shaking; unfair, so unfair.

He removes his hand and stumbles out of the bathroom; closes the bedroom door behind him with a loud thump. His phone is on the bed.

“He’s here,” he says without preamble as soon as Combeferre picks up.

Combeferre doesn’t miss a beat. “Is he hurt?”

“His head is bleeding, but the cut isn’t deep. It was bleeding a lot, though? I don’t think he even noticed it before he got here, Jesus Christ, I—he’s pressing a paper towels against it now. Ferre?”

“Yeah?”

“What do I _do_?”

“What you’re already doing,” says Combeferre.

“Having a panic attack?” he shrieks.

“Don’t let him sleep for a few hours, just to be safe. He’ll be fine. _You_ ’ll be fine. Remember to breathe.”

He laughs. “Sure, yeah, I’ll do that,” and hangs up.

He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. Enjolras is in his bathroom, bleeding. Enjolras came to his apartment, unprompted. Enjolras held his hand, sort of. Breathe, Combeferre says.

He takes small steps to the bathroom, afraid he will find it empty—but Enjolras is still there, sitting quietly on the sink, towels crumpled in his hands, his hands on his lap. He’s bleeding again; looks up with wide eyes, the brightest eyes he’s ever seen, and they seem unsure. It makes his heart ache in unfamiliar ways.

“Do you want me to leave?” Enjolras asks quietly but firmly.

“Why would I want you to leave?” he asks breathlessly.

“We sort of had a fight yesterday?”

“Oh,” he says distractedly, taking some new paper towels and pressing them against Enjolras’s head again. “Stay still.”

Enjolras is watching him, and it’s unnerving and thrilling at once. He lingers even when the bleeding stops, hand separated from skin only by the thin sheets of paper, then finally removes it with with some regret, throws away the pink-tinged paper towels and looks at Enjolras at a loss.

“Ferre says you shouldn’t sleep for a few hours.”  

“Right,” Enjolras nods, biting his lip. “So do y—”             

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out on top of whatever Enjolras was going to say. He feels the weariness of a day spent in hopelessness crash onto him, faces Enjolras sitting in front of him like an apparition, and though he knows it’s not enough he says it anyway. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

“Courf told me what they did,” Enjolras says carefully. “Are you all right?”

Is he all right? I failed you, he thinks, why isn’t Enjolras leaving, why isn’t he looking at Grantaire with disgust, why is he _there_ at all? It makes it so much harder not to—not to hope.  

“I’m…” He probably looks like death, what’s the point of lying? “I’m better now. It’s not their fault. What happened to you?”

Enjolras looks down and raises a hand, almost unconsciously, to the bruise on the side of his head. He regrets asking.

“Forget it,” he says quickly, suddenly feeling the frailty of the situation. He doesn’t think he could deal with the rest of this day if Enjolras leaves now, and stumbles over his next words. “You don’t have to tell me anything. Do you want to, um, watch something? To stay awake, I mean.”

He has to keep Enjolras awake; what if there’s something _wrong_ with him? The thought is enough to make bile rise in the back of his throat.

“Yeah,” Enjolras says. “I mean, if you don’t mind me staying.”

He sounds _hopeful_ , which is probably Grantaire losing his mind.

“Not the news, though,” Enjolras adds.

“Right. Movie?” And it’s like one of their regular nights, only there’s so much unsaid that it feels like the first days, when they were still stepping on eggshells around each other, when he stared more than talked or talked too much about nothing; before it became easy, or as easy as it could ever be for him to be around Enjolras. 

Enjolras nods and pushes himself down; they stand facing each other for a moment. His breath catches. Enjolras is taller than him, just perfectly so; he likes that, likes imagining walking into him, likes thinking about how that embrace would feel. But this is too real, too close for comfort, so he takes a step backward and stumbles into the living room.

“Come on,” he says, sounding a little strangled. “I have a lot of things. Sit.”

Enjolras takes his spot on the couch—he has a _spot_ , that will never fail to amaze him—and accepts the laptop. He hesitates for a moment, flashing back to the first time he showed Enjolras his art, then takes a seat, careful not to brush against Enjolras, who’s browsing his movie folder intently, like it’s some important document he's studying.

“I don’t know half of these,” Enjolras murmurs.

“They’re classics,” he says. Enjolras is frowning at the long list of black and white movies, which makes him smile. “You don’t like old movies?”

“I don’t watch a lot of movies.”

“Of course not,” he says. Obviously in this too they are completely different. “I bet you only watch documentaries about disease and death.”

Enjolras snorts. “What’s this?”

“ _Holy Grail_ ,” he says, though Enjolras can read that. “Monty Python?”

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“Who’s never seen _Holy Grail_ , you philistine?”

Enjolras shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips.

He laughs, the mood shifting towards something lighter. “Right. We need to educate you immediately.”

“That’s a comedy thing, right?” Enjolras says as he gets up to connect the laptop to the TV.

“A comedy thing,” he repeats. “Jesus Christ. How do you even exist?” He plugs the laptop, then turns off the lights—it’s a movie, he’s justified—and sits again by Enjolras’s side.

The absurdity of the situation makes him want to laugh, suddenly. He thought Enjolras might never even _talk_ to him again, and now  _this_. The scenario is so outside the realm of possibility he never even considered it, amidst the multitude of fantasies he’s had involving Enjolras. He draws his knees up and watches Enjolras watch the movie; sees the tension of the day slowly leave him, the way he starts sprawling, and then finally and genuinely laugh. They don’t talk much, only comment on the film a couple of times, but this feels familiar again, and his heart is frantic with a desperate sort of happiness. They’re not touching, but barely. Enjolras hasn’t moved to put any more distance between then, and that alone is enough to power Grantaire through a few days. He knows the movie by heart, so he sits and peers from the corner of his eye.

“Does this go on forever?” Enjolras says eventually.

He snaps awake; the final shot has probably been going for a while. “Yeah, sorry.” And, almost pleading, “Don’t sleep.”

“I’m tired,” Enjolras sighs, looking straight ahead. He looks—lost. Enjolras is never lost. He always knows where he stands, but now he’s hurt and slouching in Grantaire’s couch and he came here. He came to him.

He swallows. In the black-blue darkness of the living room, feeling the reality of Enjolras beside him, he remembers moments spent in his bed, whispers in the night, how the intimacy of it haunted him for days on end. It feels like that again, and he feels he has permission to ask. “You want to talk about it?”

Enjolras plays with the edge of the blanket that covers the couch. He gives a little shrug. “It started out fine, then… it got out of control. We couldn’t— _I_ couldn’t do anything.”

“You couldn’t have,” he says, confused.

Enjolras laughs bitterly. “It was my responsibility. Bossuet got hurt,” he adds, with a frown, “and others, too, from what I saw. People got arrested. I don’t know why they didn’t take me. I promised it would be a peaceful thing, but I should’ve known—I should’ve taken measures to ensure everyone’s safety—”

“You can’t control thousands of people,” he says firmly, turning his entire body toward him, trying to infuse his tone with as much conviction as he feels. “No one would’ve been able to do anything different.”

Enjolras pushes himself a little straighter on the couch, gives him a look that is—hopeful? Surprised? Grantaire can’t tell.

“People did come,” Enjolras says slowly, “but you were right. So many of them were just going along with the tide, they didn’t even know why they were there. Some came just to have a chance to break things.”

Grantaire doesn’t want to be right; he rarely does. “They seemed pretty focused when you were speaking,” he says.

Enjolras’s eyes are clear and piercing, his lips curl in a smile. “You were watching.”

“Of course,” he says. “Wanted to see if you’d keep my edits.” Enjolras rolls his eyes, and he’s speaking before he can think. “You were brilliant.”

Enjolras groans and looks away. He wants to turn his face back to him. He knows, doesn’t he? He must know what he looks like up there, speaking as if he could change the world with the power of his beliefs, the most stunning thing Grantaire has ever seen—and it’s not just his looks, but this force that comes from somewhere inside him, intangible and passionate, that reaches out and touches others like—like light and warmth, enveloping them completely. Grantaire watched him like thousands of others, and thought, yes, they should all listen to him, why would anyone not listen to him? And to think someone like that slept in his bed, had breakfast with him, laughed at his jokes; someone like that, wasting time with him, sitting beside him with a bruise on his head instead of going anywhere else in the world. He doesn’t understand.

Enjolras peers at him, and maybe it’s the light of the TV, but Grantaire thinks he sees him flushed.

“Is it worth, though?” Enjolras asks. “People got hurt. I always thought… I never gave it much thought, to be honest. Like a few cuts and bruises were to be expected, but now that it’s on me… fuck, Bossuet could’ve died.”

And Grantaire sees the way he shivers, breathing out like the air inside him is constricting his lungs, and he knows that look all too well.

“Hey,” he says. “Ponine called me, he’s fine. Everyone is fine.”

He touches Enjolras’s forearm gingerly and Enjolras turns, laying his cheek against the back of the couch and drawing up his knees. They touch his side and his heart threatens to leap out of his chest.

Enjolras still looks as if he’s trying not to break down. “I must look really bad if you’re saying these things,” he whispers with a thin smile.

“It’s all true.” He can’t find it in him to remove his hand from Enjolras’s arm, even if Enjolras can probably feel him shaking. “You did well, all of you. I’ll bet you they’ll cover the good as well as the bad. No one will blame you for what happened.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this,” Enjolras says, an incredulous grin on his face.

“What? Why not?”

Enjolras raises an eyebrow. “ _Why not_? You’re always saying how I don’t think about the things I do.”

“Yeah, but… That’s just me being an asshole.”

Enjolras nibbles at his bottom lip. “Sometimes you say exactly what’s on my mind, actually,” he mutters, like a confession. “You just have this way of getting right at the heart of the matter. Even— _especially_ when I don’t want to recognize something. If I’d listened more… I mean… You’re right, I know you’re right, and I hate it sometimes.”

And it’s like the floor has vanished beneath his feet. It has never occurred to him Enjolras might listen to what he says, that he might take any of it to heart; the idea he could’ve hurt Enjolras in any way doesn’t even compute, he never—it’s _nauseating_ —he’d never, ever hurt him, he’d rather disappear, and he’s choked up, he needs to make Enjolras _understand_.

Enjolras, who is so close, his eyes subdued and gentle and Grantaire feels his entire body expand with tenderness. He’s been strong about _this_ , at least—he’s given Enjolras space. But he’s pulling apart at the seams now, Enjolras will have to stop him, because Grantaire simply _has_ to—he raises the hand that was on Enjolras’s arm and grazes the spot around the bruise with feather-light fingers. Enjolras watches him. Grantaire trails down the side of his face, traces the line of his jaw; Enjolras closes his eyes, then leans forward and settles on his shoulder, breath ghosting the skin around his neck.

He shivers. He’s tried a few drugs in his life, things that have made him giddy and high, and they all fade in comparison to this.

He doesn’t know what to do; he expected Enjolras to push him away, but Enjolras is pliant beneath his touch. He breathes in the smell of his hair, lets his unsteady fingers trace his neck, feel his pulse—you were bleeding, he thinks, don’t do that again—then run against his scalp, burrowing into his hair. Enjolras hums against him, a low sound that reverberates inside his ribs.

“Can I sleep now?” Enjolras asks, words whispered on skin.

It takes him a moment to realize Enjolras means _now_ , _here,_ and he swallows hard. He’s trembling all over. “Yeah.” His body is twisted in an odd uncomfortable angle and he doesn’t mind if he never moves again. Enjolras sags against him, releasing a breath; his right hand is hesitantly playing with the hem of Grantaire’s t-shirt, and he thinks, yes, please; tugs lightly on Enjolras’s hair—please, I, anything you need—and Enjolras extends his arm, circles his waist. He feels every point of contact between them. His breathing is ragged and nothing will smooth it; he feels like a furnace.

“I should’ve been there,” he blurts out.

“You couldn’t have done anything to stop it,” Enjolras murmurs.

No, but he could have… Someone hurt Enjolras, and the thought someone got close enough to make him bleed is enough to drive him _mad_.

“I wouldn’t have let them hurt you,” he breathes out.

It’s too much, he’s being too obvious, but when is he _not_ and Enjolras never noticed before; he’s beyond caring, anyway, there is no way to carry on as before. There are more and more parts of him leaking through the cracks. He feels Enjolras breathe, weaves his fingers through his hair as softly as he can. Enjolras falls asleep—he must be really tired if Grantaire’s frantic heartbeat allow it. He can tell by the way his breathing smooths, by the way his body becomes much heavier. The weight is the best thing he has ever felt, and he wants to drag Enjolras on top of him completely, wants to disappear in his arms. He is hurt, he tries to tell himself, he was scared, that’s all there is to it, don’t get used to it. And it was almost better when he never got this close, because the idea this is the only time he’ll ever feel Enjolras against him is unbearable.

The TV continues to shine with the blue-gray light of the menu; he makes no move to change it. He makes no move at all. Minutes or hours later, the door opens. Grantaire tenses, but Enjolras doesn’t wake—just shifts position a little, arm tightening around him.

He wonders idly what they must look like to Feuilly; what _he_ must look like, if his face is any indication of what he’s been feeling. Feuilly stops dead in front of the door, his mouth open in astonishment. Then his lips shape into a smile.

“If you wake him,” Grantaire mouths, “I will kill everything you love.”

Feuilly chuckles silently and nods, making a show of tiptoeing to his own room.

Grantaire focuses on breathing, and doesn’t realize when he falls asleep.

*

There’s a second heartbeat when he awakes, close to his ear. His body is twisted weirdly, but it’s warm where he is, and soft, and a hand is cupping the back of his head, and he could stay here, he thinks, for a long time.

Then consciousness returns with a force, and he realizes he’s squished against Grantaire.

Grantaire, who’s sleeping like the dead. Enjolras blinks, turning his head to find he was lying on Grantaire’s chest, his left arm pressed against the back of the couch and his right arm under one of Grantaire’s. He raises himself with unspeakable care, eyes focused on Grantaire. There are dark circles under his eyes, Enjolras notes as he disentangles himself. Grantaire shifts a little and turns to the right, and ever so carefully he raises himself further, right hand supporting him while the left grazes against Grantaire’s side so he can put his weight on his legs. Grantaire breathes, undisturbed. He looks tired, but peaceful, and Enjolras stares at him for a full minute before he thinks to shift his gaze to the right.

Feuilly raises a mug in greeting.

A flush spreads from his neck up. It takes all his self-control not to collapse on top of Grantaire—and the thought makes him feel even warmer. Feuilly is clearly biting down a laugh and Enjolras just shakily removes himself from the couch, stands and dusts off his clothes, as if that’s going to erase the creases in them somehow. The creases from spending a night on the couch. With Grantaire.

He finds his phone on the floor (when did it even fall?) and there are half a dozen unread messages. He’ll read them later, he decides, and looks at Feuilly, who’s now finished his coffee and is openly staring at him, like some fascinating creature. He wonders if Feuilly will tell anyone what he saw, and then wonders why he almost wishes he _would_.

“I’m leaving in ten,” Feuilly says quietly.

He nods, avoiding Feuilly’s eyes. His have a will of their own, apparently. They run over Grantaire’s prone figure and end up on the floor, where there are bottles he didn’t even notice last night. He’s moving before he realizes, picking them up and taking them to the kitchen—he knows his way around—and setting them inside the cabinet beneath the sink where Grantaire thinks he keeps his alcohol hidden from him.  

Then he stands idly, looking out the window at a day that promises to be lovely. Soon there’s the low sound of a door opening and closing, and when he walks into the living room, Feuilly is nowhere to be seen. He pads softly to the couch. Grantaire has shifted on his side, his mouth half open, looking utterly abandoned to weariness, but relaxed in a way he never is awake. His hair is falling messily over his face, and Enjolras pushes a stray lock out of his eyes. Then he moves quickly and silently, takes a piece of paper and scribbles a note which he tucks beneath Grantaire’s pillow, and leaves the apartment.

On the street again, he starts sifting through his messages.

Combeferre [6:12:34]: are you ok?

Yes. No. He calls.

“Hey,” Combeferre answers after the first ring.

“Hey. Is everyone all right?”

“Bossuet’s fine, don’t worry.” And that’s a relief, at least. But it doesn’t change the fact he ran from his responsibilities and it doesn’t change anything _else_. “Are you coming home?” Combeferre asks.

Oh, that’s right—Grantaire called him last night. If Combeferre demanded the truth, Enjolras knows now he’d tell everything, but his friend is too tactful for that.

“Can we go somewhere? Have you had breakfast yet?”

Twenty minutes later they meet at a café halfway between their place and Grantaire’s; they take a corner table and Enjolras sits and nurses his coffee for about ten minutes. The silence is not uncomfortable, but when he looks up at Combeferre he thinks that maybe it’s because they’re both lost in their own thoughts.

“How much did I fuck up?” he asks suddenly.

“Hm?” Combeferre startles. “What do you mean?”

“I ran away. I haven’t—fuck, I haven’t even seen the news.” They were the organizers of the whole thing; he was the supposed their leader. There were cameras around them yesterday, and who knows what they caught, instead of his explanations? Who know if he could have made things better if he’d stayed?

“What were you going to do, leave Bossuet there?” Combeferre frowns. “It’s fine, Enjolras. No one’s thinking about it like that.” Just him, then. “I know you’re disappointed, but we did what all we could’ve done. No one expected us to control thousands of people.”

“You sound like Grantaire,” he murmurs.

It’s the morning rush, and people bustle around them. He glances at the counter, at the line of people, at working men and women rapidly downing a lonely cup of coffee. Then he grits his teeth and looks back at Combeferre, who is sipping his coffee in complete calm.

“Then Grantaire is obviously wiser than previously thought,” Combeferre says, and that’s that. The world doesn’t shift on its axis, and Combeferre doesn’t press.

This is probably one of those times he wants Enjolras to _communicate_.

“What did _you_ do?” he asks instead.

“Me? Jehan and I went to the hospital, after you left. Courf met us there and we, um. Went home.”

“Who’s we?”

Combeferre is tracing the café’s logo on their napkin. “Courf and I.”

“Hm.” He clears his throat. “So, are you two… all right, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t believe you’re stalling,” he complains, “that’s my thing. You’re supposed to be the mature one, in touch with your emotions and all that.”

Combeferre snorts. “Yeah, all right. We’re fine.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing, we just had an argument, and things got weird for a while, but it’s fine. I’m fine.” He sounds a little like he’s convincing himself, and Enjolras is not reassured. “We had a talk about… boundaries.”

He snickers. “Boundaries. Courfeyrac?”

“I know.”

“Courfeyrac, known as the reason I take showers with the door locked? That’s who you talked to about boundaries?”

“I know, I know, I just. He has to know that I don’t want to hear about—never mind. We talked it over. Sometimes you just have to… let things go, you know?”

And there are too many ways he could take that, so he just nods. He doesn’t have any right to probe further, even though Combeferre doesn’t sound all too happy about whatever resolution they’ve arrived at.

“I said I’d have lunch with him today,” Combeferre continues. “We, um, do that, sometimes. Want to come?”

“You have lunch sometimes?” Enjolras frowns. “Why am I never invited?”

Combeferre blushes. “You’re never around,” he mutters. “You’re so busy lately. With work and—things. We didn’t think you’d want to?”

“It’s fine, it doesn’t matter.” In the grand scheme of things he doesn’t understand, he’ll let this go. It’s the thing to do, apparently. And, as a walk in the Luxembourg might help take his mind off Grantaire, he says, “I’ll come.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently if you say a chapter is your favorite, people expect it to be happy? ehehehe. Sorry about that! Hope this made up for it. As always, thank you so much for reading! Come say hi on [tumblr](http://sonhoedesrazao.tumblr.com)! :D


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so so much for your comments. I really appreciate all of you still reading this! This chapter goes to [barricadestation](http://barricadestation.tumblr.com/), who inspired me to post when I said I would and also never to promise anything of the sort again.

“The point of an outdoor lunch,” Courfeyrac says, tugging at his sleeve, “is actually looking at the outdoors.”

“I want to see what people are saying,” he mutters, never taking his eyes off the screen.

“You know what they’re saying,” Combeferre says gently.

He hums noncommittally and continues to alternatively refresh half a dozen tabs on his laptop. It’s a crisp September afternoon, and under drooping, rustling leaves at a table in the Luxembourg, they’re surrounded by an almost eerie peace. Part of him vaguely recognizes that Combeferre and Courfeyrac are much more at ease around each other than they have been lately, but he’s not listening to their conversation, a lazy back-and-forth to his left.  

He scrolls down Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and a couple of news sites where people are still posting comments on reports and photos. The bruise on his temple doesn’t hurt, but it throbs lightly, a constant reminder of failure. (Also of gentle fingers pressed against it, but that’s something he’s not considering right now.) Public opinion is divided; some people claim the thing was bound to derail into riots, others defend violent actions were minimal in comparison with the absolute number of the people on the streets, and count it as a victory for civil awareness. He wants to know it all: how many people were injured—Bossuet, part of a number now—, how many arrested, how many windows broken, how many cars wrecked or burned. It’s hard to believe it all started in the backroom of the Musain, with a big idea.

Whatever anyone else says, he _feels_ responsible. Nothing he has ever organized has ever been so successful and disastrous at the same time, and if he doesn’t assume responsibility, what will stop him from risking the lives of others again?

“Well, that’s stupid,” Courfeyrac says matter-of-factly. “You’d never risk our lives.”

“There are people at the hospital,” he says gruffly. “They could have been you.”

“But they’re _not_ , thankfully,” Combeferre says, annoyance brought on by having the same argument three times since the morning. “So let’s stop playing the what-if game. We’ll do better next time,” he says with certainty, “and that’s something we’ll discuss at a proper time, like a meeting. Enjolras, please close the computer.”

“No. _Ouch_! Did you just stab me?”

Combeferre flashes what seems to him a wicked smile. He’s holding a fork, and Courfeyrac’s laugh seems to startle the very trees around them—they sway more widely than before.

“Don’t you have to go back to work?” he asks.

“It’s awfully quiet for a Sunday,” Courfeyrac shrugs. “Paris is sleeping in.”

Is Grantaire, also? Has he read the note? _No_ —he’s not thinking about that, he decided, why can't he stick with it?

“Wow, all right, what just happened in that head of yours?” Courfeyrac asks. “Your face did this thing—” and he tries to imitate it by making a bizarre grimace.  

He sighs. “Just the rally.”

“Jesus. We need to cheer you up.” And then Courfeyrac gives a shout, half rising from the bench. “I know what we need!” He stretches both arms in their direction, like he's begging them to listen. “A sleepover.”

“No,” he says reflexively.

“Your resistance comes a shock,” Courfeyrac says, “but I’m doing this for you, you know. You need to relax. I’m offering the full Courf treatment.”

“Oh,” he says dryly. “In _that_ case.”

“Tomorrow’s Monday,” Combeferre points out.

“Next Friday, then,” Courfeyrac says. “No—a weekend _trip_! Oh, _Ferre_ , isn’t it a good idea? We can go to my place, my parents won’t mind. It’ll give them an excuse to take a break, and we’ll have the house for ourselves. It’ll be a time for _healing_.” He's envelopped by Courfeyrac's arm; Courfeyrac squeezes his shoulder. “Don’t you want to sleep in my loving embrace?”

He flushes, for reasons entirely unconnected to Courfeyrac. “No.”

“You're the worst. What do you think, Ferre? We used to do this kind of thing all the time. Now it’s like we’re never together anymore!”

“We’re together almost every _day_ —” he starts.

Courfeyrac cuts him. “Oh, that’s like a _job_ by this point. All we do is whine about school and plan civil dissension. I’m talking about getting out. Changing our routine. Reconnecting with who we were before.”

“I’m free this weekend,” Combeferre—the traitor—puts in.

Courfeyrac brightens. “We’ll give plenty of time for everyone to rearrange their schedule,” he says, and laughs when Enjolras groans. “We’ll have so much _fun_. There’ll be nowhere for you to run from the fun. The fun will surround you like a warm blanket until you forget all this stupid business. Besides, I’m sure you can give up your bed for one night,” Courfeyrac ends suggestively.

It takes him a second to realize Courfeyrac is not hinting at yesterday, but thinking about the first night he spent at Grantaire’s. Every few days Courfeyrac recalls the mystery of the Lost Night, as he calls it, and every few days Enjolras has to hear a new theory. All of them seem to involve him doing a walk of shame of some sort, and he doesn’t think about how accurate that might be. He shoots Courfeyrac a warning glance.

“So it’s settled then?” Courfeyrac flutters innocent eyelashes at them.

“Nothing is settled,” Enjolras tries, but he knows it’s hopeless—Courfeyrac has his phone in his hand and is typing furiously; a few seconds later he reads the message that arrives.  

Courfeyrac [2:17:54]: WEEKEND EXTRAVANGAZA AT COURF’S COUNTRY HOUSE: MISSION CHEER UP OUR DEAR LEADER. DETAILS TONIGHT

He sighs, and turns his eyes back to the screen.

*

It’s Sunday; Feuilly has left him breakfast, and Enjolras has left him _this_.

He’s been reading it since he found the crumpled piece of paper, after the initial crushing disappointment of waking up alone. He’s stared at it until the tilt of each letter was imprinted in his brain, mouthed the words again and again, and yet he still likes to look at it.

_Hey. I have to assess the damage. Breakfast tomorrow?  Call me if want to give it another try._

And:

_Call me if even if you don’t._

He doesn’t call. He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t do much of anything, except read a text Éponine sent him the night before. He finds his phone on the bed, where he left it after calling Combeferre.

Ponine [8:21:43]: he called ferre. hes at home. dont worry.

Which means Combeferre lied for him. He would think about it, if he could focus on anything that isn’t Enjolras, and him and Enjolras, and whether he can even put a conjunction between them, for more than a minute. _Call me if want to give it another try_ , he recites, and wonders how Enjolras’s mouth would shape around the words, if they would sound inspiring and decisive. In his mind, they’re whispered sleepily, warmly. In his mind they sound like safety.

_Call me if_ —does he even want to try again? He poses the question to himself as the morning wastes away. When he sun is high and his hands start shaking, he makes himself a drink. Does he want to try again? he repeats as the alcohol slides down his throat. Is Enjolras even aware of the different ways he could interpret that? Did he mean just the drinking, or—or _them_? Does Enjolras think _they_ are even a thing?

Does he want to try again?

He reads Courfeyrac’s message when it arrives. Yet the weekend might as well be next decade as far as he’s concerned; nothing seems real or solid after tomorrow. And he knows it’s dangerous to hope, to set expectations, to see things as turning points, because in the end you’ll almost always end up disappointed, but he made it steadily, week after week, by focusing on the next day, so maybe it’s okay to have a few expectations. He never managed to quit entirely, but it was a near thing. It’s the most he’s ever accomplished, anyway, the hardest thing he’s ever done. He knows any of his friends would tell him it’s something to be proud of. He wouldn’t go that far, but it’s _something_. But he can’t deny he did for the wrong reasons, and he can’t deny he failed.

Sunday afternoon drags on, and so do his thoughts. He moves and paces and finally settles by the window, where he watches until the bright blue of the sky starts turning a soft yellow. He can’t do it for Enjolras anymore. He shouldn’t have in the first place, but the temptation had been too strong, and as the days went by it was harder and harder to let go. It seemed so unlikely that it would work, at first; when he managed to hold on, he could hardly believe it, and just kept driving himself forward. 

But he knows, now, he won’t be able to face Enjolras if his only goal is making him stay for as long as he can hold out. Enjolras believed in him, still believes, and of course only _he_ could ever have so much faith. Grantaire has always admired that about him; how can he dismiss it when it’s turned toward him? The way he sees it, he has to two options—concede defeat, or do all he can to be someone worth Enjolras’s time. Even if he fails in the end, as he suspects he will. He still doesn’t believe, and yet… remembering Enjolras’s words, his quiet support, his unshakable steadiness, he realizes maybe a small part of it has infected him, taken root, made hope grow in a barren place. Maybe it could grow stronger on its own. Maybe.  

He calls Éponine. She tells him Bossuet’s fine, that she left the hospital soon after calling Grantaire and that Joly sent her a message this morning.

“That’s good,” he says.

“Guess who showed up at the hospital?”

“Marius and Cosette?”

“Parnasse,” she says with a low chuckle, in which there’s unmistakable fondness. “He was pissed off I was caught in the middle of that mess, so naturally I told him I always do what I want. So he said he’d just have to come with me next time. Ridiculous, of course, but… I guess, also…”

“Sort of nice?”

She snorts. “Damn him." He finds himself smiling. Neither of them speaks for a moment. “You called _me_ ,” Éponine points out.  

“Right, yeah. I wanted to apologize.”

“What for?” Éponine asks casually.

“Freaking out over your intervention,” he says, “then being a complete asshole afterwards. I know you were just worried.”

Éponine makes an approving noise on the receiver. “Consider yourself forgiven, and _are you crying_?”

“No,” he says. It sounds watery, and he laughs at himself. “There’s something else.” And his stomach is in knots, but his chest feels light for the first time in a long time. “I sort of—I made a decision.”

“Okay?” she says carefully. “R?”

“I’m really sorry for—everything, really,” he gets out, and it’s embarrassing how the words run into each other, how he doesn’t even sound like himself. It’s horrible to let someone see you weak, and he’s always tried to hide the weak parts of him, only now it feels like he’s made up of those parts, and there’s nothing else left to show. “I don’t want to do this anymore, I don’t want to live like this, I’m going to try this time. I’m going to give it a try, really, for—for me.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” she breathes out.

He abandons any pretense of steadiness, letting faltering sentences slip through his lips. “But I can’t do it like before, fuck, I can’t just—be around everyone and act like I’m okay—it’s so hard when they’re all there, and they’re happy and drinking, and it’s like I’m being stretched _thin_ , it’s so hard, I just. I just need to stay away for a while, until it gets a little better.” He wipes a sleeve across his face, it comes off wet. He’s shaking. “I need you to help me explain it to them.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Éponine says softly. “All you had to do was say the word. We’ll do anything we can to help, all right? As if you can get rid of us,” she scoffs, “have you met this group?”  

“I don’t want anyone to just—drop everything,” he says. He knows what she’s thinking, but he still hates the thought of being a burden to them. “It’ll be too much pressure, I hate to do that to you. Please.”

“Listen,” she sighs, “I’ll help you explain what you want to whomever you want, but you should know they’ll just say what I’m telling you right now. Stop crying,” she adds. “We love you.”

When Feuilly gets home, he sits beside Grantaire on the couch—he’s been staring at the wall for two hours, he probably looks deranged—, looks him over seriously and asks him how he’s doing, and he blurts it out. That makes two. He’s even more terrified of failing them now but Feuilly looks happy and proud and repeats Éponine’s sentiments almost word for word, and maybe, he thinks, maybe it’s okay to hang onto someone while trying to stand on your own feet.

He sleeps fitfully that night and wakes at four, stares at the ceiling until five-thirty, has a cup of coffee and whiskey—has to start from scratch again—and walks in the chilly morning to meet Enjolras. He should be rehearsing what to say. Most mornings he would think of anything he might come up with to make Enjolras laugh, anything interesting to make his eyes bright and focused, but today his mind refuses to cooperate. The hotel’s front is familiar to him now, and he feels an odd mix of terror and tranquility as he walks in.

Seeing Enjolras is never easy; even harder when Enjolras brightens at the sight of him. His heart skips and floats, as it always does. _This_ , he is absolutely certain, will never change.  

“You didn’t call,” Enjolras says as he approaches gingerly. “I thought you might not come.”

There’s a purple bruise near Enjolras’s eye; he stilled the blood that poured from it, trailed his fingers against it. He wants Enjolras close again, a full-on ache that makes his longing from before seem like a dull, distant throbbing.

It crosses his mind that quitting Enjolras would perhaps be harder than quitting alcohol.

“Sorry about that,” he says. The lobby’s deserted. His feet move forward, somehow, until only the counter separates them. “I wanted to, but... thought I’d just see you in person. I’ve been thinking.”

Enjolras places his elbows on the counter, leans until they are eye to eye. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands; closes them into fists not to let them roam.

“About?” Enjolras asks, as if he can’t wait to hear all about it.

You, you, always you. But something else, as well.

“I’m starting over,” he says, and the smile that Enjolras gives him is blinding, even for him; it says, you made the right choice and, I knew you would—even when he didn’t know it himself. “I told Éponine,” he says, taking a deep breath. This is the hard part. “Feuilly, too. I wanted you to know, because you don’t have to… you don’t have to be the one to keep me together anymore.”

He wants Enjolras to understand that he will live. If he tells Grantaire to go now, if he says he sees no point in him coming around anymore, he will live. He will hurt, but he will live. He needs to know _why_ Enjolras has let him get so close. Was it guilt, a sense of duty or—

Enjolras is biting his lip. “I’m glad you came,” he says quietly, his voice like a caress, silk laid over his skin. “I asked them to make those croissants you like.”

_Oh_ , he thinks dizzily.

“—and I could use some help with this post I’m trying to write. If you can stay?”

He’s overtaken by the urge to tell Enjolras that the only reason he can even think to try this is him, his faith and his strength; that if it hadn’t been for him it would’ve never have occurred to him that he could make a choice like this, to take a leap not considering the worst possible outcome; that he makes Grantaire feel stronger just by standing there, and that he wishes—hopes—he gives Enjolras anything at all in return.

He swallows the words, but can’t help but smile, and feels more exposed than he’s ever been.

*

The trip to Orléans goes by fast. Grantaire’s playlists are blasting inside his car, and he sings along, knowing the way. He’s been to Courfeyrac’s house several times. His parents are affectionate, easygoing people. When he gets to their place Saturday morning—he couldn’t get out of his Friday night shift—the house is deserted. Its owners have, like Courfeyrac promised, taken an impromptu trip to allow the “kids” to have their fun, and he assumes all his friends are still in bed.

He’s moving to throw his bag on the couch when he sees a figure slumped over the kitchen table, nursing a steaming mug.

“Hey,” he calls.

Grantaire startles, then gives him a sleepy smile. “Hey yourself.”

He goes inside, takes the seat across from Grantaire. “You’re up early.”

“Turns out months of rising with the sun to freeload have gotten me used to it,” Grantaire says.

He watches for signs of weariness—or worse—but Grantaire seems calm. But Enjolras knows sleep still doesn’t come easily, and guesses Grantaire got up to drink without anyone around. He keeps his guesses to himself.

“Sorry I spoiled you,” he says mildly. “Did you have a wild night?”

“Oh yeah,” Grantaire snorts. “Things got really adventurous when Joly pulled out the Twister.” Grantaire takes a sip of coffee and looks down. “Especially with no one drinking.”

They’ve talked about this maybe seven times this week. Grantaire has slowly moved from total opposition to grudging acceptance, and he’ll take it—it’s better than seeing him quietly freaking out, like Monday night, when—somehow—everyone just _knew_. Grantaire said, later that night, that it was Éponine’s doing, at his request, but that he never wanted everyone to quit along with him. When he asked what Grantaire _had_ intended to do, he heard Grantaire planned to make himself scarce for a while—so Enjolras had to inform him how much that was _not_ going to happen. Grantaire relented a little after that.

“Have you eaten?” Grantaire asks.

“I grabbed something at the hotel,” he says. And, feeling strangely jittery, grabs the paper bag on top of his suitcase and puts it between them. “Here. They insisted.”

Grantaire opened it to find an assortment of breads and cakes, and gives a snorting laugh. “Remind me to thank them,” he says.

“They spoil you.”

“And don’t you dare stop them,” Grantaire says, and Enjolras wonders if no one else had nothing to do with it.

They enjoy a companionable silence as they eat. Their interactions have been softer all week, almost tentative. They don’t speak about the night of the rally and he still hasn’t broached the topic of Grantaire with anyone, but Combeferre knows _something_ developed when he wasn’t looking. He’s just waiting for the right moment to broach it.

Silence is broken by the sound of stumbling steps coming downstairs, and soon enough Courfeyrac has an arm around him.

“Enjolras! For me?” Courfeyrac exclaims, taking a muffin from Grantaire’s hands. “Come on,” he says between bites. “We got to get you settled in.”

There are two mattresses occupying the floor of Courfeyrac’s room, and Enjolras greets Jehan and Bahorel, yawning and stretching on the small bedroom.

“As you see, there’s a slight space problem. Someone will have to sleep with me tonight,” Courfeyrac announces with wiggling eyebrows.

“I’ll take the chair,” Enjolras says.

“I’ll sit on the corner,” Jehan offers.

“I’d rather sleep outside,” Bahorel adds.

“You all love me,” Courfeyrac mutters, and yelps when Combeferre passes by the bedroom.

“I _have_ a room,” Combeferre mutters sleepily, and walks on.

For some reason, Enjolras discovers, he gets the privilege of the Courfeyrac’s father’s study, which has a big and comfortable couch and hundreds of books on wooden shelves.

Bossuet, Joly and Musichetta are in Courfeyrac’s parents’ room (“They sleep on that bed, so I hope they’re not—ugh—”), Marius and Cosette are in a guest room, and Grantaire, Éponine and Feuilly have taken hold of the living room's couches. He ignores the thought that crosses his mind and the stab of _something_ that comes with it, and tells Courfeyrac he’ll stay with Combeferre. They find him a thin mattress and fluff it up with blankets and he guesses he’ll be enough on the floor for a night.

It’s almost noon when everyone’s awake, washed and dressed, and lunch and the afternoon are spent around the city. Since only he and Combeferre have taken the Super Courf Tour before (“Spoiler alert,” he warns, “it’s not that super”), they explore the city center and walk along the river bank, Courfeyrac reciting historical data like a proper tour guide, though probably more excitedly than one.

“They have a Museum of Fine Arts, you know,” he tells Grantaire when he manages to discreetly approach him. “Courf made me go once, but let’s just say he’s better as a city guide.”

Grantaire snickers, then looks up at the darkening sky. “I’d love to see it. Damn.”

“We’ll come sometime,” Enjolras promises, touching his arm, and moves away before he can see Grantaire’s expression.

Back at the house, his laptop gets confiscated, Courfeyrac orders an absurd amount of food and everyone sprawls themselves around the living room. In spite of Grantaire’s insistence that they have whatever they want, there’s not a bottle in sight.

“Listen up!” Courfeyrac exclaims amidst the general chatter, standing on his knees beside him. He opens his arms widely. “You’re probably all wondering why I summoned you here.”

Enjolras groans. “If the words truth or dare come out of your mouth—”

Courfeyrac turns to him with a bright grin and says, through gritted teeth, “You already know what I’d ask, don’t you?”

“And you know what I’d ask you,” he shoots back.

“What are you two muttering about?” Joly whines, lying between Musichetta’s legs. “Share with the class.”

“Yeah, there are no secrets from the group!” Jehan says.

There’s a moment of silence.

“Okay, there are _almost_ no secrets from the group,” Jehan emends.

“Never mind my secret business with Enjolras,” Courfeyrac waves. “Just trying to make him bare his soul to me. Don’t laugh, I’ll succeed eventually. Back to my brilliant idea!”

It turns out Courfeyrac has a karaoke machine, an announcement which is received with startled looks and more excitement than Enjolras will ever understand.

“Who has a _karaoke machine_ at home?” Grantaire asks, incredulous.

“Um, fun people?” Courfeyrac replies. “Just follow my lead and you too can be one of them, my dear,” he says, leaning over to ruffle Grantaire’s hair and getting a punch on the arm for it. “So, this is how this is going to go down: first pairs and groups, then everyone gets their solo. Best performer of the night wins.”

“Wins what?” asks Bossuet.

“Just wins,” Courfeyrac says with an expression of profound wisdom.

Enjolras pierces through the laughter and scattered applause. “You know those things just give a full score to everyone, right?”

“One, no they don’t,” Courfeyrac says, “as I distinctly remember you getting a shit score last time you were here. And yes, people, I heard Enjolras sing. Sometimes I still wake up screaming. _Secondly_ , we’ll be the judges, all right? We’ll take a vote. Like in a democracy,” he enunciates. “How do you like the sound of that, Enj? The people will decide.”

He just rolls his eyes. They finish eating and clear the room, pushing the couches against the walls; Courfeyrac puts the coffee table in a corner.

“We need space,” he explains to Enjolras patiently, “for choreography.”

“There are points for choreography?” Cosette asks. “That’ll be embarrassing for so many of you.”

“Yeah, lady,” Bahorel shoots back, “especially for your boyfriend.”

“Hey,” Marius protests weakly.

“There are points for choreography, naturally,” Courfeyrac continues as he puts one of his parents’ vase inside a cabinet, supposedly protecting it from the wildness of the choreography he’s expecting to take place. “The criteria are,” he says, counting on his fingers, “natural talent—sorry, most of you; song selection; raw emotion; and choreography. With special points for high notes and any other shenanigans.”

“I think he’s just making this up,” Bossuet stage-whispers.

“How dare you! Karaoke championships are a tradition in this family. Now, who’s first?”

There’s the inevitable moment of silence, then Bossuet, Courfeyrac and Joly start it off with _Don’t Stop Believing;_  Bahorel and Feuilly follow with _Wanted Dead or Alive_ ; Combeferre, Jehan and Courfeyrac attempt _Bohemian Rhapsody_ ; Grantaire and Éponine do _Dancing Queen_ ; Marius and Cosette are cast as the leads in _Summer Nights_ , supported by the rest; and Enjolras is told that if he doesn’t join in for _Time Of My Life_ he’s going to be Christina when they reenact _Lady Marmalade_ (the roles end up falling to Joly, Jehan, Musichetta and Éponine).

Things seem to derail after that, people apparently getting into it—Joly and Musichetta do Sonny and Cher; Courfeyrac reveals he’s a _Natural Woman_ ; Cosette almost makes Marius’s eyes pop out with _Like a Virgin_ ; and Enjolras doesn’t know how he ends up part of Boys II Men, but he doesn’t resist when the Macarena starts. After Jehan does a positively obscene version of _Let’s Get It On_ , it’s no surprise when Courfeyrac dares someone to do _I Touch Myself_ (Combeferre takes the challenge, reducing the challenger to an alarming shade of pink), and Bossuet, Grantaire and Feuilly put on something promisingly called _Who’s Your Daddy_.

Eventually Courfeyrac reminds everyone they need to do their solos, and Enjolras withers quietly in on the floor while everyone’s suddenly abuzz. Only Grantaire seems to notice him. He’s nearby on the floor, back against one of the couches, and shoots Enjolras a smile. He’s got a good singing voice, Enjolras has noticed, when he’s not deliberately trying to be bad.

“I’m not singing,” he says.

Grantaire snorts and shakes his head. He’s wearing a large gray sweatshirt that looks worn and comfortable, but it’s Éponine who cuddles up to him. They’re close enough that Enjolras can hear what Grantaire says.

“If you don’t do _I Will Survive_ , I don’t know if I can forgive you.”

Éponine chuckles. “Well, if you don’t do—” she leans in and whispers in his ear, and they burst out laughing.

“All right, people,” Courfeyrac is saying. “Come on! You’ll run from the police but don’t have the guts to do this?”

“I’ll start,” Musichetta says, fearlessly tackling something that should’ve died in the 90s and making it sound good, somehow. Bossuet follows with an upbeat Michael Jackson song, while Feuilly picks an obscure song from an indie band no one’s ever heard of, reminding everyone he knows more music than all of them combined and is judging their choices. Bahorel immediately steps in with _Eye of the tiger_ —“Because I can, suck on that”—and Joly follows with _Ice Ice Baby_ , until Courfeyrac just throws his hands on the air. “Fine, if we’re doing it this way, then I’ll just—” and he puts in something Enjolras has never heard.

“What _is_ that?” he asks Grantaire across the space that separates them.

“MIKA,” Grantaire says. It means nothing to him, but Grantaire’s laughing hard, tears at the corner of his eyes as Courfeyrac dances absurdly all over the living room, and and he finds himself laughing as well.

Courfeyrac finishes with a flourish, surrounded by applause, and makes a bow.

“Will someone bring some class back, please?” Feuilly asks. “My ears are bleeding.”

"I can bring sexy back, if you wa—"

_"No,_ Courf, I'm good."

Cosette sings Adele—“The queen,” Musichetta nods, “good choice”—and Combeferre, as he suspects, picks The Beatles, and does a poignant version of _Yesterday_ that gets a loud round of applause, while Jehan chooses something he recognizes from Grantaire’s playlists—Florence and the Machine, he thinks, and devotes himself entirely to his performance. No one’s surprised when Marius picks a love song, but they are at the fact he can carry a tune. By the end of it—a classic, straight out of the 1940s—Cosette’s blushing prettily and they kiss, ignoring the hoots around them.

“Right,” says Éponine, rising. She picks some punk rock band—though Grantaire would probably say he can’t even recognize what punk rock sounds like—and her strong, clear voice fills the room.

“When is Enjolras singing?” Jehan asks sweetly after she finishes.

He sets his jaw and puts on his best intimidating look. It doesn’t work at all.

“I know you don’t know music,” Courfeyrac says, “but that’ll only make it more fun.”

“I know things,” he counters.

“National anthems don’t count!”

“Name one band you like,” Bossuet says. “And remember, Feuilly will be judging.”

There are several he’s grown fond during the past few weeks, but he doesn’t hesitate. “The Smiths,” he says, pointedly looking anywhere but at Grantaire.

Jehan gasps. “Seriously? Enjolras! They’re amazing, I love them. Morrissey is the epitome of emotion. You have to sing them now. Pick a song! Your favorite.”

“I…” Why did he open his mouth? “I _really_ can’t sing—”

But they don’t even let him finish the sentence, voices rising to cut his arguments to shreds. He’s piercingly aware of Grantaire nearby—if he looked to the side he’d find his stare, but he’s careful not to do that—and vaguely aware of his movements and his intentions as he names a song, any song. No, not any song. He hates singing. His voice sounds foreign when he sings. _I know a place where we can go_ —he’s not completely awful at it, but it’s not the technique, it’s the emotion— _where we are not known_ —his passion is the passion of speeches, but music demands something else— _you said I was ill and you were not wrong_ ;when he speaks to a crowd he speaks not only to them but _for_ them, but this makes him speak for himself— _the alcoholic afternoons when we sat in your room_ —it makes him…  _they meant more to me than any living thing on earth_ …

He shakes his head. People are clapping, someone’s wolf whistling, and he's not sure what he's just done.

“Not the most technically perfect thing I ever heard,” judges Courfeyrac, “but you definitely get points for trying.”

“Your points mean nothing,” he reminds Courfeyrac weakly. He sits back where he’d been; from the corner of his eye, he can see Grantaire is turned toward him.

And then Jehan exclaims, “One to go!” and he realizes Grantaire is next.

Grantaire looks at the rest of them and shrugs. “All right,” he says calmly, and Enjolras feels ridiculous for being so worked-up himself. “Amateur hour is over—get me a guitar, Courf.”

“Ooh,” they say, and that’s right, Grantaire can play—he mentioned it at some point, but made it sound like he could just strum a few chords, nothing like what he does when Courfeyrac produces a guitar from somewhere and he places it on his lap and starts drawing a familiar melody from the strings, and—and Grantaire can sing, and why is he even surprised? of course he can. His voice floats over the music and wades into it, soft and tender and sad; he knows the song, Grantaire put it in one of his playlists, and Enjolras knows he will never listen to it again because it won’t ever come close to  _this_ —he’ll just have to ask Grantaire to sing it to him again, he’ll just have to record it, somehow, he needs to hear it again. 

“Well, fuck,” Bahorel says cheerfully when Grantaire finishes as softly as he started.

The room is silent; he feels—strange. Like his bones are loose inside him.  

“Yeah,” Courfeyrac agrees. “There was no need to completely _destroy_ the rest of us—”

“Shut up,” Grantaire flushes, setting the guitar aside.

“Can we name him the winner already and go back to 80s hits?” Éponine asks gruffly, but she’s smiling.

They do. Grantaire rises, after a while, while Joly, Courfeyrac and Éponine are singing something about falling in love and falling apart. He waits a couple of minutes and follows discreetly, and finds Grantaire hunched over the sink, weariness in the slump of his shoulders, an empty glass in his right hand, paused on the sink.

Grantaire turns around when he hears footsteps, and his eyes go from wary to relaxed in the second it takes him to recognize Enjolras. Only a week ago, he would’ve flinched if Enjolras had found him like that.

“Courf casually let me know there was an open bar in here,” Grantaire explains. “Don’t tell him, but I’m pretty sure some of the guys have been taking a few sips, as well.”

Something crashes loudly on the living room floor, possibly a vase.

Enjolras lifts an eyebrow. “You don’t say.”

Grantaire snorts, slides the glass into the sink and stares down into it. “Nice song choice,” he murmurs.

Enjolras finds himself crossing the kitchen to stand beside him. “You’re really good,” he says.

Grantaire gives a low, self-deprecating laugh. “Yeah, right.”

He always does this when Enjolras compliments him, like he thinks it’s a joke. It drives him mad. “I mean it,” he says. Grantaire’s still focused on the glass. “Are you okay?”

Grantaire runs an unsteady hand over his hair, then opens the faucet and starts washing the glass. “I’m fine. Why did you sing that?”

“It was the first thing I could think of.” Grantaire’s music was the first thing he could think of, because Grantaire is always at the front of his mind. “Did I ruin it?” he asks.

“No,” Grantaire mutters. “No, you were good. Was it really—I mean, of all the songs, was it—” He places the glass on the dish rack and his hands linger around it. He's still not meeting his eyes.

“Why won’t you look at me?” he asks. He wants to know the end of the question, wants to answer it truthfully this time.

Grantaire gives a small jolt at the question, then finally looks up at him. His eyes are wary. 

“What?” Grantaire asks after he’s been staring in silence for a moment too long. His voice is thin; Enjolras sees him swallow. “What are you looking for?”

Grantaire’s eyes have looked different lately, clearer, and Enjolras sees in them, sometimes, something that is infinitely sad and unspeakably gentle. He hates making assumptions, hates when he’s wrong and when he misses things everyone else sees, but not knowing his own feelings has been a whole new level of frustration. He’s figured out that the confusion and the bright and sharp and fiercely warm thing that’s wrapped itself around his life these past few months have everything to do with Grantaire. He’s figured out he’s afraid.

In fact, it seems that's all he is lately—afraid, for his friends, for their safety, for Grantaire’s health, for their friendship—but most of all for himself. Not for his safety—he’s been hurt before, he’s been arrested, he doesn’t worry about that at all. This is different. This is feeling his mind slip out of control, being taken over; this is realizing someone else has a grip on him and that if they squeeze or let go he will feel it.

He’s tired of being afraid.

He raises his right hand, trails a couple of fingers softly down Grantaire’s jaw. Grantaire’s eyes widen with shock, and he exhales beneath his touch. Enjolras kisses him.

It’s just a soft press of parted lips; he closes his eyes and lingers for an openmouthed breath they share. His heart is thundering in his chest, in his ears. He pulls back.

It’s unclear if Grantaire is breathing at all.

A shout comes from the living room. “Where _are_ you?” Courfeyrac says, close and as if from a different world.

Grantaire breathes in sharply, turns toward the sink again; Enjolras gives a step back just in time to see Courfeyrac stick his head in the kitchen door.

“Oh, hello. Am I interrupting something? Are you two planning on joining us?”

There are other people in the house. There are other people in the _world._

“Yeah,” he says.

Grantaire echoes him, and somehow the night continues as if nothing's changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras sings These Things Take Time (the thing! she said the thing!) and Grantaire, you guessed it, Hallelujah, though I made the song choices purposefully vague. Give me your favorites~
> 
> And, because I can't resist, here's the Grantaire/The Smiths playlist that no one asked for: The Boy with the Thorn in his Side, Unlovable, There is a Light that Never Goes Out, Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, I Want the One I Can’t Have, Still Ill, Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me, How Soon is Now, I Know it’s Over, Hand in Glove, Half a Person, Asleep—it's an angstfest, but they're all so fitting?? And I love The Smiths, if you couldn't tell, haha. 
> 
> One chapter to go! Not sure when it'll be up, as I'm swamped with work. But come on [tumblr](http://sonhoedesrazao.tumblr.com/) if you want to chat!


	10. Chapter 10

The sun will rise in a couple of hours, and Combeferre is yawning as he slowly pulls out his sweater. Enjolras comes in behind him, closing the door of the study and muffling the last sounds from the living room. He sits on his designated couch, still dressed and feeling slightly nauseous.

“Can we talk?” he blurts out. He has no right to ask this, not when he’s been lying for so long. He’s stopped making the distinction between withholding information and lying a long time ago; it’s been just as long since he’s had a real conversation with Combeferre. He’s been a terrible friend and there’s no way to take that back, but he also knows his best friend will never refuse to listen to him.

Combeferre startles, as if lost in thoughts of his own. “Of course,” he says, his voice scratchy and tinged with sleep, and takes a seat across from Enjolras.

He’s thinking about how to go about this when the door opens.

“Just seeing if you need anything—blankets? Pillows? Chocolate? A story?”

“We’re good,” Combeferre says.

Courfeyrac looks a little crestfallen. “Right. I guess—good night, then.” He looks them over; Combeferre first, then his eyes flick in Enjolras’s direction. He feels weary and broken, and maybe looks the part too, because Courfeyrac frowns. “Did you do something stupid?”

He jumps where he’s sitting. “I—what—why are you asking?”

Courfeyrac narrows his eyes. “After I called you from the kitchen, you were all—strange. R was really distracted.”

“And that means I did something stupid?” he asks, and he means to sound indignant but the question comes out hesitant. And he might as well do this, he thinks, there’s no way to take _anything_ back. “Close the door,” he sighs. “Do want to know where I spend the Lost Night?”

Courfeyrac’s eyes widen, he closes the door with a dull thud and eagerly steps inside. “Don't play games with me.”

“The Lost Night?” Combeferre asks.

“About a month ago I said I was staying at Courf’s for the night.”

“I remember,” Combeferre says slowly.

“I wasn’t at Courf’s,” he says.

“All right,” Combeferre sounds confused, and, for some reason, turns to Courfeyrac instead of him.

“I covered for him,” Courfeyrac says, blushing. “Sorry, he asked me, I thought he was going to tell you about it soon. I’m sorry?”

This is ridiculous; he’s the one who lied, why should Courfeyrac be any more at fault?

“It’s fine,” Combeferre says, then rolls his eyes and pats the spot on the couch next to him. Courfeyrac looks inordinately pleased when he sits down. Combeferre turns to him. “Enjolras?”

He wants to say so much and doesn’t know how to start. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“You’ll laugh.”

“I won’t,” Combeferre says.

“Courf will laugh.”

“Of course not!” Courfeyrac protests. “I wouldn’t want to wake the others. I’ll do it on the inside.”

Enjolras huffs. “Fine.” He runs a hand over his hair, a gesture he’s sure he’s picked up from… “Fuck.” He grabs a pillow and sticks his face inside it.

“Is he having an aneurysm?” Courfeyrac asks calmly.

He snaps his head up. “What constitutes a date?” 

His friends blink. Then Courfeyrac slaps a hand over his mouth, shallow breaths escaping from his fingers. Enjolras glowers. “No laughing,” Courfeyrac promises, as if it's costing all his self-control. He's never going to live this down. 

“It’s not an unreasonable question,” Combeferre says, a strange look on his face. “What _does_ constitute a date?” he asks Courfeyrac.

All the humor drains out of the other. “Well, you have to ask someone somewhere. Alone, of course.”

“Right,” Combeferre says.

There’s a moment of silence.

“And there has to be an underlying romantic intent,” Courfeyrac adds.

They’re looking at each other. Enjolras feels distinctly uncomfortable, all of a sudden.

“Isn’t that a little subjective?” Combeferre asks, as impatient as he's ever sounded. “How are you supposed to _know_?”

“I don’t know,” Courfeyrac breathes out. “If someone invites you to do something, alone—I mean, that’s a sign—”

“Not if they’re interested in someone else.”

“What if they’re not?” Courfeyrac asks, and Enjolras is sure, now, he’s missed something huge, because Combeferre pales.

“Don’t—are you—are we talking about the same thing?”

“I didn’t mean to lie,” Courfeyrac says in a rush. Combeferre moves to rise almost unconsciously; Courfeyrac grabs his wrist. “I swear I didn’t mean for you to think—but then you _did_ and I thought I could—”

“Trick me?” Combeferre's voice cracks. 

“No, never that,” Courfeyrac says urgently. “But you’re so hard to read. I couldn’t figure out if you…” He looks up with pleading and earnest eyes. “I lied, I know I did—at first I thought I might find out what you felt, but then—then you said you didn’t feel that way about anyone, and I thought it wouldn’t matter what you believed. Was I wrong?”

“Jesus Christ,” Enjolras breathes out.

He’s entirely ignored. Combeferre’s stare is boring holes into Courfeyrac.

“I,” he gulps. Enjolras has never seen Combeferre speechless. Combeferre always knows what to say, he doesn’t get _speechless_. “You should’ve told me.” Combeferre laughs. “I was lying too, obviously. Fuck, do you know how long I’ve been trying to—”

Courfeyrac gets up, right hand still wrapped around Combeferre’s wrist. He slides it down and lets their fingers slip together.

“I never thought this would happen,” Combeferre whispers.

“Enjolras being here is a surprise,” Courfeyrac says, and they laugh, still looking at each other.

Conversations he’s had with Courfeyrac these past few months finally make sense, but that is little comfort to him now. He scrambles up.

“Enj, no, wait,” Combeferre calls.

“Yeah,” Courfeyrac says, appeasing, but it looks like it takes all he has to look away from Combeferre. “Come on, I still want to know about the Lost Night.”

“You just hijacked my conversation to,” he makes vague gestures, “confess your love for each other, so I’ll take a rain check on that.”

“Enj,” Combeferre insists, but he’s already leaving, head swimming with thoughts, a heaviness in his chest that has something to do with their clasped hands.  

He closes the door behind him and stands without purpose for a few moments. He wants to tell Grantaire about what just happened. He wants Grantaire to laugh and tell him he’s known it for weeks, because, thinking back, Enjolras is sure he has. He wants Grantaire to tell him he’s not a complete idiot for not noticing. He wants Grantaire.

He stumbles towards the living room, where people are sleeping piled up on one another. Éponine and Bahorel are sharing a couch, Feuilly’s sprawled on the other, and Jehan, Marius and Cosette are burrowed into cushions on the carpet. Bossuet, Joly and Musichetta went upstairs, and Grantaire is nowhere in sight.

He turns and slowly steps into the kitchen; the lights are off, but a red-orange glow flickers near the window, from where the pale light of night drifts in. A figure is leaning against the counter, smoking a cigarette out into an open window.

Grantaire turns brusquely when he sees him. His hand falls, the motion unconscious, and the cigarette is extinguished. Enjolras walks in.

*

He’s stuck to the spot. He won’t say something ridiculous and sappy—Enjolras, it turns out, does not brighten the night with his very presence. And yet he is thankful for the dimness and whatever cover it provides him.  

And then Enjolras steps forward, this intent look on his face—focused, like before, in this very spot, when he—when he kissed Grantaire. And _that_ was one thing he didn’t foresee, except in his most tightly-locked dreams, the ones he tried to stay away from himself, and he doesn’t think he can stand it if Enjolras apologizes and says it was a mistake, but Enjolras is moving and if he meant to say that, he could do it from further away—

He watches, frozen, as Enjolras gets ever closer. He feels flushed, absurdly warm and cold at once, and what is Enjolras doing, what is he—surely he can feel Grantaire’s heart thumping madly inside his chest, trying to escape him. Enjolras moves his hands cautiously, as if asking for permission; feather-light fingers touch his waist. All he can do is breathe. 

Only the thin fabric of his t-shirt separates Enjolras’s hands from his skin. He lifts his arms; his hands fall on Enjolras’s upper arms. He allows them to rest there, lightly, trembling. He couldn’t lift them now if he tried.

He can’t look away either, though Enjolras’s eyes are almost blinding—feverish and impassionate, like when he’s giving a speech, only they’re in Courfeyrac’s kitchen and there’s nothing there for Enjolras to be passionate about, there is only him. Hope is dangerous, he thinks, hope hurts.

“You,” Enjolras starts, then swallows and steps closer, slides his hands all the way around him. His thumb presses down, draws a circle in his lower back; Grantaire feels liquid. Out of him escapes a small, helpless whimper. “Grantaire.” Those eyes, adored and deep, taking him in. “You like me, right?”

And maybe because Enjolras sounds afraid; maybe because the past few months have gone by like a dream; maybe because Enjolras’s hands are around him and Enjolras’s face is only inches from his, and there are only so many ways to interpret this, even if you’re Grantaire and used to smothering any inkling of hope in your heart; maybe because all his synapses are shattering, brain-to-mouth filters no longer working—maybe that is why what comes out of him, in an exhale, is the truth.

“I love you,” he says, simply, quietly, and laughs. He is stripped to the bone.

Enjolras’s eyes widen and his vision swims, the unsteady swirl in the bottom of a glass, but Enjolras does not move away. There’s a pressure on his sides, a shift forward and— _yes_ , they can be even closer; his hands shake as they move upwards and land on a sharp jawline, fingers tracing the soft, soft skin there. He closes his eyes. Enjolras does not ask; he must realize, he thinks, by now he must know he can have whatever he wants.

And it’s only been a few hours but he realizes he needs Enjolras’s mouth on his, that if he never felt it again it would _unbearable_ —Enjolras’s lips are chapped and his tongue is warm, wet, probing; hands that had been loose so far grip and bypass the fabric of his shirt. He keens into Enjolras’s mouth, shivers when there’s an answering moan, when nails scratch his back. Enjolras bites his bottom lip; he paws at Enjolras’s neck, grips Enjolras’s hair; he wants everything at once, he’s wanted for so long, he will never stop wanting—Enjolras is pressing him against the counter, body against his, and it’s the best thing he’s ever felt, there’s no competition, no comparison, no—he doesn’t mind if he never breathes again, prays he doesn’t, and regrets it instantly when they break apart. 

They breathe heavily across the small space between them. Enjolras’s eyes are locked on his and he doesn’t know how he’s still standing. He didn’t know it was possible to feel like this, can’t figure out how he has lived in shadow all these years when he could be set ablaze with a touch. 

Enjolras rests his forehead against his. “You’re shaking,” he murmurs into Grantaire’s cheek, and tightens his hold.

Grantaire loves him desperately. He tries to speak, but it comes out as a whimper. “Enj.” He’s never used the nickname before. “Enjolras.”

“I’m glad I wasn’t wrong about this,” Enjolras smiles.

He feels his face breaking. He gasps-laughs-sobs, and he needs to know that Enjolras is _sure_ , but Enjolras cups his face and kisses him again, harder this time, and his body is overtaken by desire, crashing onto him, overwhelming and sudden. Enjolras steps back and pulls him along, they stumble out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Enjolras guides him blindly, palming the walls, and he’s never been happier to be led—he fumbles with a doorknob, Enjolras closes and locks the door behind them. It’s Courfeyrac’s room, he realizes, there are mattresses strewn on the floor. They’re stepping over them, hands on each other and mouths crashing together. 

The back of his legs touch something, and the next moment he’s pushed, gently but firmly, onto something soft. It’s Courfeyrac’s bed, but it doesn’t matter; Courfeyrac could be _on_ it, it still wouldn’t matter. Enjolras, he thinks, the last word he’s got left, over and over again like a mantra,  _Enjolras_.  

*

Grantaire looks ruined and opened and beautiful, and it occurs to Enjolras he has no idea what he’s doing. For a second he’s terrified he’s going to mess this up before they even start, but his doubts aren’t stronger than _this_ —he can’t think or stop himself from straddling Grantaire, putting his arms around his neck.

Grantaire’s hands land on his thighs and rub up and down; Grantaire looks at him with his jaw slack, his lips opened, his eyes reverent. No one’s ever looked at him like this; it’s intoxicating. He breathes in the gasp that leaves Grantaire's lips; settles firmly in his lap and kisses him again, soft and then hard. His heart is a wild thing.

Grantaire makes a noise in the back of his throat, chest rising and falling like it’s costing him every breath.

He pulls back, feeling high-strung and hot and hard.

“I’ve never done this,” he confesses.

Grantaire tenses. “We don’t have to,” and it’s the first thing he’s said since gasping Enjolras’s name.

“What—no,” and how does he say how much he wants this, wants _him_? He ends up grinding his hips against Grantaire, and the sound it elicits makes a shiver go up his spine. “I just wanted you to know," he says with a smile. "So you won’t be disappointed.”

“Disap—oh my _god_ ,” Grantaire laughs, burying his face in the curve of his neck, wrapping his arms around him, and Enjolras wants to keep him there for a long, long time. “Do you know how long I’ve thought about—” Grantaire’s still shaking, and it’s lovely. He’s lovely.

“Relax, god,” he breathes out, a laugh bubbling out of him. He tastes the spot where Grantaire’s neck meets his jaw, sucks tentatively. “I’ve thought about you too.”

“You thought.” Grantaire pulls back, looking like he’s going to pass out. “—about this. With… me.”

He’s not used to being shy, but he can be anything with Grantaire. “Who else?” he asks, and it’s the right answer, because Grantaire moans a word that perhaps was meant to be his name and thrusts up. 

Enjolras kisses him, wet and hard and desperate. He’s never felt this excruciating urge to feel someone else’s skin against his, and it’s dizzying verging on painful. He slides his hands beneath Grantaire’s shirt and Grantaire gasps into his mouth, digs his nails into Enjolras’s back. He needs him _now_ , needs his hands on him; no more of this, he thinks, pulling Grantaire’s shirt up. Grantaire lets him, pliant and willing. What would it feel to have Grantaire’s hands on his cock, he wonders; needs to know.

Grantaire grips him by the waist and swivels them both, carefully guiding him backwards. His movements are slow, as if he’s still not sure he’s allowed. Enjolras falls back on the mattress; the bed is unmade and the sheets are soft beneath him, and— _oh_ , this is better, Grantaire on top of him, covering him, kissing him with legs framing his, pushing down while Enjolras pushes up and they rub against each other. It’s maddening and wonderful and still not enough.

Grantaire sits back, runs his hands over his torso. He’s looking at Enjolras as if committing him to memory, and he recognizes the look now—it’s the one he gives the beautiful things he wants to draw. Oh, he thinks. He’s not breathing right, with arousal and something else. 

He guides Grantaire’s trembling hands, starts unbuttoning his own shirt. Grantaire gets the message and helps him out of it. He doesn’t resist pushing up and against him one more time, feeling him shiver, biting his lip, and when Grantaire is keening he falls back again, flushed and heavy and hard. Come on, he thinks, then whispers. Grantaire’s hands shift to his jeans, and his fingers move quickly now, like he needs to do this as much as Enjolras needs to feel him. Enjolras lifts his hips; the jeans are pulled out of him at one fell swoop, then Grantaire is on top of him again, hands pausing at his hips, and places kisses on his jaw, trailing down his neck. “Tell me—stop me if you don’t want me to—”

You’re absurd, he thinks, he wants anything, he wants everything, do what you will. And Grantaire moves toward his chest; sucks on a nipple, scrapes his teeth against the soft skin there. He should probably be ashamed of the moan that escapes him, but his brain isn’t making the usual connections right now, his mind blank of anything other than these new sensations. Grantaire moves down; he lets his hands fall on soft, curly hair. He loves Grantaire’s hair, he’s come to realize; he loves Grantaire’s lips on his skin, the wet patches it leaves behind, the shivers he feels after Grantaire moves on; he loves how Grantaire looks up, lips swollen, and flutters his eyelashes at him, kissing a spot above his navel. He loves Grantaire.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he breathes out.

Grantaire laughs against his skin, the happiest laugh Enjolras ever heard from him. He wants to save the sound of it, keep it resounding in his memory.

Then Grantaire palms him over his briefs, and he can’t _think_ anymore; Grantaire mouths his cock over fabric, and he throws his head back, a meaningless stream of words leaving his lips, his hands gripping Grantaire's hair. Grantaire groans, as if he can’t stand the teasing any more than he, as if Enjolras is the one breaking _him_ , and starts pulling him out of his briefs. He helps, looks down when he's completely naked. Grantaire licks his lips, and that should _not_ be allowed; his legs are twitching. And then those lips are wrapping around the head of his cock. Grantaire strokes him with a calloused hand and sucks lightly, experementally, and it's maddening. He begs, yanking his hair, and Grantaire swallows him down eagerly.

And he never thought it would be this good—his imagination has fallen terribly short. Nothing could’ve prepared him for the way his cock hits the back of Grantaire’s throat, or how Grantaire _hums_ around it, and how hot his mouth is. This, this is what everyone’s always talking about, he will never question them again. He raises his head, forces his eyes open so he can see. Grantaire moans; he’s not going to last long and he can’t stop speaking, even if he’s not making any sense, just murmurs “Yes” and “fuck, that—ah—” and tries to breathe.

Grantaire’s other hand is digging nails into his hip. He’s trying hard not to thrust into Grantaire’s mouth, but Grantaire just curves his lips and sucks on pre-come and loosens the grip, raising his eyes to him, like an invitation—permission—and he is gone. His hips move once, twice, and he’s coming in Grantaire’s mouth, trembling, gasping his name, the world a white-hot glare. Grantaire swallows eagerly, like he's been waiting all his life to do it. There’s a buzzing in his ears. His bones feel loose as he relaxes into the mattress. His hand is still in Grantaire’s hair and as soon as he can breathe again he pulls Grantaire toward him.

He’s still wearing jeans; Enjolras fumbles to unzip him and Grantaire manages to get himself out of them, throws them over the side of the bed. He’s on top of Enjolras once again and he pulls Grantaire's boxers down, slides a leg around him to force their bodies together. And this time they’re both naked and damp with sweat and smelling like sex and Grantaire whimpers; Enjolras flips them over and kisses him. I can taste myself on you, he thinks, and how has he lived this long without him? Grantaire sounds like he’s dying beneath him and Enjolras doesn’t bother with finesse, just smears the pre-come leaking from Grantaire’s cock to stroke him fast and hard, and his eyes don’t leave Grantaire’s face, he wants to take it all in—the mouth open wide, the choked off breaths, the eyes ablaze. Grantaire comes with a whine that turns into his name; he slows his movements, drags him through it. When Grantaire is spent, eyes rolling to the ceiling, fingers clasped around his arm, Enjolras half collapses on top of him.

He keeps his eyes closed until his breathing evens out and it no longer seems like his heart is going to climb out of his chest; when he opens them, Grantaire’s looking at him with that look that he sometimes gives him, that look that he never understood until now, like it’s hurting him to be around Enjolras. He gets it now. The bed is a mess. He smears Grantaire's come over his stomach, then brings his hand to Grantaire's lips and leans in to taste him. Grantaire looks dazed.

He doesn’t move afterwards. Grantaire’s fingers trail up his arm, the side of his neck, push into his hair. Enjolras laughs, for no reason except he is happy.  

“So,” Grantaire murmurs a while later. “What’s the verdict?”

He doesn’t know how to put into words. It’s not just the sex—though _that_ , they’re _definitely_ doing that again, and so many other things, _fuck_ —it’s Grantaire next to him. He never consciously missed having someone like this, being the most important person in the world for someone else, but he doesn’t think he can live without it now. The feeling fills him with fear and joy and excitement and tenderness, and only Grantaire has ever managed to inspire it in him.

“I love you,” he says, because that’s the simplest way to put it.

Grantaire breathes out. “Enjolras.”

“I do,” he repeats, because he knew Grantaire wouldn’t believe it, he _knows_ him and his insecurities and how fragile and strong he is at the same time. He looks Grantaire squarely and speaks in a rush, “I don’t know when it started to be like this and it took me so long to realize what it was, but I’ve never felt anything like this. I think about you all the time, I worry about you _all the time_. It drives me mad when you’re upset or angry or hurt and I can’t do anything about it. It’s even worse when it's my fault. I kept trying not to think about it, because I didn’t think you felt the same—”

Grantaire makes a choked-off noise. “Jesus,” he says. “I’ve been in love with you for years.”

He needs a moment. “You never—you wouldn’t stop _arguing_ with me!”

Grantaire smiles sheepishly. “You’re stunning when you’re angry,” he says.

“You’re absurd!”

“Shh,” Grantaire says, and kisses him, then giggles—actually _giggles_.

“What?”

“I just had sex with you,” Grantaire says, “in Courfeyrac’s bed.”

Which reminds him. “I think Courf might be having sex with Combeferre in his father’s study.”

And Grantaire laughs harder. “Finally!”

“You knew, then?”

“He’s not subtle.”

“ _I_ didn’t notice,” Enjolras counters.

“Well, I wasn’t subtle either and you never… don’t frown, why are you frowning?”

“Do the others know?”

“About me or Courf?”

He pokes Grantaire’s side, and he squirms.

“They know,” he says. “It’s not like I’ve talked about it,” he adds quickly, “except with Éponine. And Feuilly, sometimes, I think, when I was drunk.”

It’s a lot to take in, how blind he’s been and for how long. So many things make sense now and just as many he’s said are coming back to haunt him. He’s hurt Grantaire when he thought Grantaire didn’t care; and he knows it will always weigh in his heart. He’ll just have to find a way to make it up to him.  

“What else haven’t you told me?” His tone is suddenly serious. “I want us to do this right. Communicate. I want to know everything.”

Grantaire blushes.

“What?”

“ _Everything_ includes a lot of embarrassing things.”

“More embarrassing than not realizing someone’s been in love with you for years?”

“It tips the pathetic scale,” Grantaire murmurs. “Fine, as if I can deny you anything. I—I draw you. All the time.” And Enjolras imagined it, but knowing for sure makes him flush with pleasure. “I painted you for my Art final, actually.”

“The one that you did the Van Gogh for?”

“Yeah.” Grantaire’s biting his lip.

He’s already smiling. “What did you paint me _as_?”

Grantaire is the approximate color of his favorite jacket. “Liberty.”

“Liberty,” he repeats.

“Leading the people,” Grantaire clarifies, and Enjolras has to bury his head in the pillow not to wake up the house. “Shut up, you’re awful! God, I _should_ have painted you as Napoleon—”

“I’m going to have to see that, you know, right?”

“Not in a million years.”

“I bet I can convince you,” he says meaningfully, and Grantaire looks as if he’d like nothing more than to be convinced of anything, whichever way Enjolras preferred.

“That’s not pathetic." Whatever it is, it gives him the strangest fluttering feeling. “Listen, are we…” He falters. He’s never done this before, and he wants to do it _right_.

“We’re whatever you decide,” Grantaire says, dead serious, but before he can say anything, someone tries to open the door. They freeze.

“Who’s in there?”

“Courf?” Grantaire asks, then groans at himself for replying at all. “You made me stupid,” he hisses at Enjolras.

 “R? Open up,” Courfeyrac says. “I need... things. For—doesn’t matter.”

They look at each other.

“Your call,” Grantaire says. “I'll distract him while you go out the window.”

And he doesn’t know how he could ever doubt what he feels, how in the world it has taken him so long. He knows what he wants; his fear dissipates when he realizes they’re not exactly on foreign ground.

“ _R_ ,” Courfeyrac drawls, knocking some more. “What are you _doing_ in there?” A hint of suspicion.

“Have we been dating?” he asks. “All these weeks, when you went to see me at work. The museum too, I guess. Were we having—dates?”

“Only in my wildest dreams,” Grantaire says, a delighted smile on his lips. “Do you think they were dates?”

“I may not have been entirely conscious of it,” Enjolras says carefully.

“Seriously, I know you’re awake—”

“What’s going on?” A second voice. Combeferre. “I can hear you from downstairs, you’re going to wake everyone up—”

“Yeah, shut up,” says Joly, and where the hell did he come from?

Outside, someone yawns, but Enjolras is not paying attention. Grantaire is looking at him with ill-conceived anticipation.

“I think they were dates,” he concludes. “I think we should have some more.”

Grantaire’s smile is striking. “Yeah?”

“Why the fuck are we gathering outside Courf’s bedroom?” Feuilly asks.

“Grantaire won’t let me in,” Courfeyrac whines.

“R?” Feuilly calls, a hint of concern in his voice. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” he yells. “Give me a minute, Jesus fucking Christ.” And, to Enjolras, “Please tell me you mean what I think you mean.”

“What is he _doing_ in there?” Musichetta asks.

“Who’s doing what where?” Éponine says sleepily.

“R is holed up in Courf’s room,” Bossuet explains, “we think he’s _busy_ —”

“Will you all shut up?” Enjolras yells. “I’m trying to have a conversation!”

A deafening silence falls on the other side of the door.

He takes Grantaire’s hand in his. “Grantaire,” he starts. He knows he’s smiling like an idiot, and he doesn’t know how this is done, but it doesn’t matter at all. Grantaire’s eyes are really bright; Enjolras presses his hand, turns it around, places a kiss on his palm. “Do you want to be with me?”

Grantaire draws in a shaky breath, leans into the side of his neck. “You’re going to have to say that every day, y'know, or I’m going to think I imagined it.” They breathe for a moment, then, “Yes. Obviously, yes, always, every time—yes.”

Someone shuffles outside.

“Should we open the door?” he asks with regret.  

"Yeah," Grantaire grins widely. "I want to ask Courf what _things_ he needed exactly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhhh. This started as one tiny scene and developed into this ridiculously long thing and I’m just?????? THIS HAS OVER 60K WORDS HOW ARE YOU ALL STILL HERE. Thank you so, so much for reading, leaving kudos and leaving comments here and on [Tumblr](http://sonhoedesrazao.tumblr.com). I really appreciate all your input and enthusiasm and I hope it was worth it.
> 
> Also I know I’ve neglected some characters and scenes, despite how long this turned out to be—so if there’s anything you’d like me to write in relation to this fic (past, present or future), leave me a prompt on Tumblr. I won’t promise to do it quickly, but I’ll get to it!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] these things take time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11622336) by [klb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/klb/pseuds/klb)




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